A review of peer influence and teenagers’ antisocial behaviours in Africa

Abstract

The psychosocial determinants and processes that influence and underscore teenagers’ risk taking and antisocial behaviours and the role peer influence plays as a contributive factor are well documented. Behaviourists, social-psychologists, and other scholars have posited competing perspectives on the subject and agreed that peer influence, often negative, occurs in natural settings among teenagers. None of these studies have properly synthesized the results of available literature in the subject area. This study synthesizes and interprets peer influence and how it occurs and leads to behaviour challenges for teenagers in Africa. A behavioural framework is proposed. The framework (first of its kind) took into consideration behavioural variables that potentially account for the onset and continuation of peer influence. Literature over the past 25 years until March 31, 2022, were searched. The search included studies of teenagers 10 to 19 years of age. Thirty-one out of 49 independent studies were selected. Eleven of the studies were exclude because the majority of their participants were children, less than 10 years of age. The twenty remaining relevant independent studies are this review’s sample. The article focuses mainly on teenagers in Africa but draws a few studies from other countries. It concluded that given that prevention of peer contact, communication and subsequent influences are impossible, the challenge becomes one of promoting the social-structural predictors of positive peer influences while impeding the social-structural predictors of negative peer influences.

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Gershon, O. K. (2024). A review of peer influence and teenagers’ antisocial behaviours in Africa. African Journal of Social Work, 14(4), 194-206. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ajsw.v14i4.3

Visit journal website: https://ajsw.africasocialwork.net