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Derek Kreager - Pennsylvania State University. University Park, PA, UNITED STATES

Derek Kreager

PROFESSOR, Sociology and Criminology | Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA, UNITED STATES

Derek Kreager's research focuses on social networks and criminal/delinquent behavior

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Industry Expertise (2)

Research

Education/Learning

Areas of Expertise (4)

Romantic and Peer Networks

Crime and Delinquency

Life Course

Incarceration

Biography

My research focuses on social networks and criminal/delinquent behavior. Using network theories and methods, I study how friendships and romantic relationships are associated with risk-taking and crime among adolescent students and adult prisoners. I also look at how social relationships change over time and their impacts on criminal trajectories and desistance.

I have ongoing projects in two principal research areas. First, I have several projects focused on the experiences of incarceration and community re-entry. Funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, and National Institutes of Health (NIAAA), these studies examine topics such as (1) inmate social networks, (2) family visitation, (3) community social integration, and (4) prison substance use treatment. Second, I collaborate as part of the PROSPER Peers (PI: Osgood, funded by NIH) team to examine adolescent social networks and health-risk behaviors. In particular, my research here focuses on adolescent romantic relationships and sexual development.

Accomplishments (5)

Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholars Award (professional)

American Society of Criminology

Donald D. Harrington Faculty Fellowship (professional)

University of Texas Sociology Department and Population Research Center

Roy C. Buck Award for Outstanding Article by a PSU Junior Faculty Member (professional)

“Motherhood and Criminal Desistance in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods” (with Matsueda and Erosheva)

William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Award (professional)

“Peer Networks and Adolescent Sexual Development”

Outstanding Article Award for 2006 (professional)

American Society of Criminology “Deterring Delinquents: A Rational Choice Model of Theft and Violence” (with Matsueda and Huizinga)

Education (1)

University of Washington: Ph.D., Sociology 2006

Social

Media Appearances (3)

Studying the effects of incarceration on women and their families

Phys.org  online

2016-10-24

The number of women in prison has increased dramatically in the last several decades, yet there is little research into women's experiences in prison and how it affects their families. Derek Kreager, professor of sociology and criminology at Penn State, and a multi-institutional team of researchers will explore the prison and re-entry experiences of women incarcerated in two Pennsylvania prisons in a three-year project funded by the National Institute of Justice.

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You May Be Dating A Cheater And Not Even Know It, Science Says

Elite Daily  online

2016-10-14

Is there anything more horrifying than being cheated on by the person you love and trust the most in the world? As far as I'm concerned, no. According to a new study, however, that doesn't make it any less likely.

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Can people who cheat have their cake and eat it too?

Science Daily  online

2016-10-10

Both men and women in committed relationships cheat for a number of reasons, despite overwhelmingly condemning the action, according to recent surveys. In a new study, a team of researchers explored the prevalence of infidelity and its effects on both married and cohabitating couples.

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Articles (5)

The Double Standard at Sexual Debut: Gender, Sexual Behavior and Adolescent Peer Acceptance


Sex Roles

Derek A Kreager, Jeremy Staff, Robin Gauthier, Eva S Lefkowitz, Mark E Feinberg

2016 A sexual double standard in adolescence has important implications for sexual development and gender inequality. The present study uses longitudinal social network data (N = 914; 11–16 years of age) to test if gender moderates associations between adolescents’ sexual behaviors and peer acceptance. Consistent with a traditional sexual double standard, female adolescents who reported having sex had significant decreases in peer acceptance over time, whereas male adolescents reporting the same behavior had significant increases in peer acceptance. This pattern was observed net of respondents’ own perceived friendships, further suggesting that the social responses to sex vary by gender of the sexual actor. However, findings for “making out” showed a reverse double standard, such that female adolescents reporting this behavior had increases in peer acceptance and male adolescents reporting the same behavior had decreases in peer acceptance over time. Results thus suggest that peers enforce traditional sexual scripts for both “heavy” and “light” sexual behaviors during adolescence. These findings have important implications for sexual health education, encouraging educators to develop curricula that emphasize the gendered social construction of sexuality and to combat inequitable and stigmatizing peer responses to real or perceived deviations from traditional sexual scripts.

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When Onset Meets Desistance: Cognitive Transformation and Adolescent Marijuana Experimentation


Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology

Derek Kreager, Daniel T Ragan, Holly Nguyen, Jeremy Staff

2016 Desistance scholars primarily focus on changing social roles, cognitive transformations, and shifting identities to understand the cessation of serious crime and illicit drug use in adulthood. In the current study, we move the spotlight away from adulthood and toward adolescence, the developmental stage when the prevalence of offending and substance use peak and desistance from most of these behaviors begins. Our primary hypothesis is that changes in perceived psychic rewards surrounding initial forays into marijuana use strongly predict adolescents’ decisions to cease or persist that behavior. In addition, based on social learning expectations, we hypothesize that peer perceptions and behaviors provide mechanisms for perceptual change.

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Toward a Criminology of Inmate Networks


Justice Quarterly

Derek A Kreager, David R Schaefer, Martin Bouchard, Dana L Haynie, Sara Wakefield, Jacob Young, Gary Zajac

2015 The mid-twentieth century witnessed a surge of American prison ethnographies focused on inmate society and the social structures that guide inmate life. Ironically, this literature virtually froze in the 1980s just as the country entered a period of unprecedented prison expansion, and has only recently begun to thaw. In this manuscript, we develop a rationale for returning inmate society to the forefront of criminological inquiry, and suggest that network science provides an ideal framework for achieving this end. In so doing, we show that a network perspective extends prison ethnographies by allowing quantitative assessment of prison culture and illuminating basic characteristics of prison social structure that are essential for improving inmate safety, health, and community reentry outcomes. We conclude by demonstrating the feasibility and promise of inmate network research with findings from a recent small-scale study of a maximum-security prison work unit.

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“Where Have All the Good Men Gone?” Gendered Interactions in Online Dating


Journal of Marriage and Family

Derek A Kreager, Shannon E Cavanagh, John Yen, Mo Yu

2014 This article explores gendered patterns of online dating and their implications for heterosexual union formation. Using 6 months of online dating data from a midsized Southwestern city (N = 8,259 men, 6,274 women), the authors found that men and women tend to send messages to the most socially desirable alters in the dating market regardless of their own desirability levels. They also found that male initiators connect with more desirable partners than men who wait to be contacted, but female initiators connect with equally desirable partners as women who wait to be contacted. Female-initiated contacts are also more than twice as likely as male-initiated contacts to result in a connection, but women send 4 times fewer messages than men. Finally, the authors compared partner desirability levels over repeated exchanges and concluded that couple similarities are more likely to result from relationship termination (i.e., nonreciprocity) than initial homophilous preferences.

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Gender, Contraceptive Attitudes, and Condom Use in Adolescent Romantic Relationships: A Dyadic Approach


Journal of Research on Adolescence

Sara A Vasilenko, Derek A Kreager, Eva S Lefkowitz

2013 Although sexual risk behavior occurs in a dyadic context, most studies of adolescent sexual behavior focus on individuals. This study uses couple data (N = 488 couples) from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine how partners' contraceptive attitudes correlate over time and whether male or female partners' attitudes are better predictors of condom use. Net of their own prior attitudes, partners' prior attitudes predicted both male and female adolescents' Wave 2 attitudes. This association was stronger for female than for male adolescents, suggesting that female attitudes were influenced more by males' prior attitudes than vice versa. When entered together, only male adolescents' attitudes predicted dyadic condom use. Findings suggest that male partners may have greater influence on adolescent contraceptive decisions and that prevention programs should emphasize the relational context of sexual behavior.

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