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Gender differential in deviant friends' influence on children's academic self-esteem

    Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

    Abstract

    Social cognitive theory predicts that deviant friends are likely to impair children's academic self-esteem through the children's cohesiveness with friends. This process is consistent with the expectation of greater susceptibility to deviant friends' adverse influence on the girl, because of the girl's higher cohesiveness with deviant friends. These possibilities are sustainable in the present study of 566 primary school children in Hong Kong, China. Results indicate that the effect of association with deviant friends on academic self-esteem was more negative for a child who was a girl and more cohesive with friends. As expected, cohesiveness was higher in a girl than in her male counterpart, when associating with deviant friends. Importantly, the interaction between cohesiveness and association with deviant friends explained some of the gender differential in susceptibility to deviant friends' influence. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1750-1757
    JournalChildren and Youth Services Review
    Volume32
    Issue number12
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2010

    Research Keywords

    • Academic self-esteem
    • Cohesiveness with friends
    • Deviant friends
    • Gender differential

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