Deviant Peer Influences in Programs for Youth: Problems and Solutions

Kenneth A. Dodge, PhD, is the Pritzker Professor of Public Policy and Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. He is Founding and Emeritus Director of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy. A clinical and developmental psychologist, Dr. Dodge studies early childhood development, prevention of violent behavior in the family, and public policy to improve population outcomes for communities. He is the developer of Family Connects, a population approach to improve children's outcomes in the first year of life. The author of more than 500 highly cited scientific articles, which have been cited more than 100,000 times, Dr. Dodge has been elected into the National Academy of Medicine and is the 2019-2021 President of the Society for Research in Child Development.Thomas J. Dishion, PhD, until his death in 2018, was Regents Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University and Senior Scientist at the Oregon Research Institute. Previously, he was Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of Research at the Child and Family Center at the University of Oregon. A leader in the field of developmental psychopathology, he developed the Family Check-Up program for at-risk families with young children. Dr. Dishion has received honors including the Prevention Science Award from the Society for Prevention Science and the 2019 Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society from the Developmental Psychology division of the American Psychological Association.Jennifer E. Lansford, PhD, is a Research Scientist at the Duke University Center for Child and Family Policy. Her research focuses on the development of aggression and other behavior problems in youth, with an emphasis on how family and peer contexts contribute to or protect against these outcomes. She examines how experiences with parents (e.g., physical abuse, divorce) and peers (e.g., rejection, friendships) affect the development of children's behavior problems, how influence operates in adolescent peer groups, and how cultural contexts moderate links between parents' discipline strategies and children's behavior problems.