The friendships of delinquents

This article is a review of research concerning the friendships of delinquents and nondelinquents. Contrasting theories and corollary research have pointed to either the distinctiveness of delinquent friendships or to the commonality with normal friendships. On close examination, with exceptions due to methodological and sample features, the research has been more supportive of differences in behavioral, cognitive, and affective characteristics of friendships. Greater conflict, poorer attachment quality, lesser ability to repair relationships, cognitive distortions, and poorer social-cognitive problem solving characterize delinquent friendships. There is little support for the superior quality of friendships of delinquents, as some had speculated. A failure to find differences between delinquents and nondelinquents in certain studies may be traced to use of single-index measures of qualitative aspects or variations in the sample studied, but this cannot be taken to mean there are no differences in the population from which the samples were drawn.