Friends' Behavior, the Hedonist Lifestyle and Delinquent and Moral Behavior Two Years Later

ABSTRACT

Whereas the influence of consumption of pornographic and other problematic activities on young people's delinquent involvement has been a popular concern in Hong Kong, it has not acquired rigorous and generalizable evidence from longitudinal research. With a baseline study of 2,500 randomly selected young people and a follow-up study of 1,686 of them, the present study examined the activities and delinquent and moral behavior over a period of two years. Results from structural equation modeling reveal that the activities and their composite factor, known as the hedonist lifestyle, had only weak effects on subsequent delinquent and moral behavior. The apparent contribution of the hedonist lifestyle disappeared in the model that included friends' behavior as the antecedent. Hence, friends' delinquent behavior and moral behavior were more important predictors and explained away effects of the hedonist lifestyle. These findings are consistent with the interpretation of subculture theory that focuses on the subculture and lifestyle shared among friends as a root of young people's behavior. Hence, the hedonist lifestyle is primarily a concomitant of the delinquent subculture and unlikely to be a unique predictor of delinquent behavior.