Deviant Peer Influences in Programs for Youth: Problems and Solutions (The Duke Series in Child Development and Public Policy)

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, is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of Research at the Child and Family Center at the University of Oregon. His interests include understanding the development of antisocial behavior and substance abuse in youth and designing effective interventions and prevention programs. He focuses on family-centered interventions and the negative effects of aggregating high-risk youth into intervention groups. He has published over 90 scientific reports on these topics, a book for parents on family management, and two books for professionals.

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.