Literature Review

Source
Hurd, N. M., Zimmerman, M. A., & Reischl, T. M. (2011). Role model behavior and youth violence: a study of positive and negative effects. Journal of Early Adolescence, 31(2), 323-354.
Notes

“Researchers have found that growing up in poor, urban neighborhoods with limited resources increases adolescents’ risk of participating in violent behavior” 324
“Interpersonal violence has the potential to alter the culture of a community and impede the moral development of its youth” 324
“One potentially influential factor on youth violence is adult role models. In an effort to better understand how adult role models may influence youth violence, a discussion of social cognitive theory is necessary.” 324
“Social cognitive theory suggests that individuals tend to display attitudes and behaviors that are learned (deliberately or inadvertently) through the influence of example”. 324
“A role model is an individual who is perceived by others as worthy of emulation”324
“As children begin to move into early adolescence, they increasingly focus their attention on non parental adults both within and outside of their family system” 325
“ Through their modeling of violent behavior, adults (particularly adults whom adolescents look up to and aspire to be like) may be fostering the development of new aggressive scripts or contributing to the maintenance of previously acquired violent scripts among adolescents” 326
“These adults may be identified as role models due to limited alternatives” 325
“an adult role model may model both negative and positive behavior” 326
“that individuals who were able to overcome adversity often reported that adult role models had positively influenced their development”327
“having role models protected youth against several negative behaviors, including participation in violence (Aspy et al., 2004), involvement in sexual intercourse (Oman, Vesely, Kegler, McLeroy, & Aspy, 2003; Vesely et al., 2004), and substance use (Oman et al., 2004). Role model presence has also been linked to fewer internalizing and externalizing behavior problems (Hurd, Zimmerman, & Xue, 2009; McMahon, Singh, Garner, & Benhorn, 2004) and more positive school outcomes (Hurd et al., 2009)” 327

Study method:
318 African American seventh and eighth graders from Flint, Michigan. We recruited participants from two area middle schools with similar school composition and neighborhood characteristics. Both schools had over 85% African American enrollment, and slightly more than 70% of students at each school were eligible for free or reduced price lunch.
Role models. In this study, we defined role models as nonparental adults who adolescents look up to and want to be like. This definition encompasses the traditional role model definition (a person worthy of emulation) and excludes parents and step-parents because parental relationships are
the children were surveyed, during the survey they were asked to acknowledge one person who they looked up to but who was not a parental figure. they were then asked a series of questions which helped define the role-models behavior as anti-social or prosocial, and their attitude towards violence.
“Participants were more likely to select role models who shared their gender than to select role models of the opposite gender,” 335

FINDINGS
“The current study findings suggest that African American early adolescents residing in low-income communities may be influenced strongly by the behavior of nonparental adults in their day-to-day lives” 349
“The results of this study indicate that role model behavior may have the potential to positively and negatively
affect outcomes among this adolescent subgroup”. 349