P C Giordano
Biographic Data
| ID | 21280 |
|---|---|
| NAME | P C Giordano |
| GIVEN NAMES | P C |
| FAMILY NAME | Giordano |
| SIGNATURE | GIORDANO P C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Bowling Green State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2484-0886 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 112 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2372 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 112 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1976 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 26 |
The wider network of social relationships and desistance from crime
Prior research has focused on marriage as a key relationship associated with crime cessation. Yet particularly within the contemporary context, relationships with parents, peers, and other family members may also foster or inhibit progress toward desistance. We rely on a symbolic interactionist perspective on social learning that not only centers on the behaviors of these significant others but foregrounds the role of communication processes with…
Consistent Reports of Pregnancy/Birth Contexts and Links to Parental Experiences
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11113-026-10005-7
Prospective Analysis of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adults’ Physical Intimate Partner Violence Victimization
Perceptions of the Future and Pregnancy Avoidance in the U.S
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11113-025-09962-2
The Relevance of Marriage Plans for Cohabiting Emerging Adults’ Psychological Well-Being
Family researchers have considered the presence of marriage plans to distinguish between non-marital cohabiting unions. We assess, in the context of emerging adulthood, whether marriage plans differentiate between cohabitors in terms of psychological well-being. Analyzing data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS), we examined associations for depressive and anxiety symptoms in a sample of 300 emerging adult cohabitors. We also co…
Controlando O Estado
Este artigo é uma etnografia de práticas do Ministério da Transparência, Fiscalização e Controladoria-Geral da União voltadas à promoção do "controle social" da administração pública federal. Em 2012, logo após vigorar a Lei no 12.527/2011, ou como é conhecida, a Lei do Acesso à Informação, a CGU, para divulgar a prática do "controle social", investiu pesadamente em produção de vídeos, inclusive os retratados neste trabalho. O esforço do órgão na…
Exploring the Married-Cohabiting Income Pooling Gap Among Young Adults
The Influence of Peers, Romantic Partners, and Families on Emerging Adults’ Sexual Behavior
The experience of social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic
Social distancing emerged as a key public health recommendation designed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 prior to the development of vaccines. Studies have focused on individual health beliefs and political orientation to explain variability in levels of compliance. The current study draws on in-depth interviews with a subset of respondents who had participated in a larger longitudinal study (n=54) to explore ways in which individuals managed …
Changes in Stress Levels During the Covid-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 pandemic related disruptions to work and family life have led to increases in stress levels; however, prior studies have not examined how stress levels and changes in stress during the pandemic may have varied based on involvement in criminal behavior. In this study, we examined how criminal behavior influenced stress levels prior to and during the pandemic, and changes in overall stress levels. Using longitudinal data collected in 2019 …
“Micro‐cultures” of conflict
Objective: To highlight the development of young adult couples' shared understandings about reasons for conflict in their relationships, views about why some disagreements included the use of aggression ("causes"), and gendered perspectives on these relationship dynamics. Background: Feminist theories have centered on relationship dynamics associated with intimate partner violence (IPV), but have focused primarily on men's concerns (e.g., jealous…
Some cognitive transformations about the dynamics of desistance
This article explores the role of cognitive transformations in the process of desistance from crime. Based on our own and others' subsequent research, clearly, some aspects of our initial theorizing warrant revisiting and adjustment. The discussion describes changes to ideas about the sequencing of various types of cognitive shifts, suggests the importance of emotional processes in tandem with changes in perspective, and highlights the need to mo…
Gender, Relationship Concerns, and Intimate Partner Violence in Young Adulthood
Adolescents’ Frequency of Alcohol Use and Problems from Alcohol Abuse
The Stress of Motherhood and Intimate Partner Violence During Emerging Adulthood
Intimate partner violence is a serious social and public health problem for women. Researchers have shown the context in which intimate partner violence occurs matters, yet, prior work has not examined specifically whether motherhood, and the relationship context of motherhood, are associated with physical violence. Drawing on the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) (n = 492), and the stress process framework, we compared emerging adult …
Relationship Dynamics Associated With Dating Violence Among Adolescents and Young Adults
We focus on the character of adolescent and young adult relationships, and argue that attention to interpersonal features of intimate partner violence (IPV) is necessary for a comprehensive view of this form of violence. Drawing on ideas from feminist post-structural perspectives, we highlight studies that develop a somewhat non-traditional but nevertheless gendered portrait of relationships as a backdrop for exploring dyadic processes associated…
The Relationship Context of Early Transitions to Parenthood
Health Starting Points
The pandemic has created multiple changes in the lives of Americans, with growing and widespread concerns about the implications for the nation's health and well-being. Most empirical examinations of the physical and mental health implications of the pandemic have rested on aggregate comparisons of prepandemic and pandemic indicators of health. The authors contribute to this body of work by considering continuity and change in health and well-bei…
The Influence of Demographic, Relational, and Risk Asymmetries on the Frequency of Intimate Partner Violence in Young Adulthood
Social characteristics are prominent factors in mate selection, but they are also important for the quality and functioning of intimate relationships. Researchers have shown that the intimate relationships that are considered the most successful often have high levels of partner similarity. Yet this prior work is limited, as it largely focuses on demographic differences (or asymmetries) between intimate partners. In addition to demographic asymme…
The Role of Marriage and Military Service on Reoffending
We build on prior research examining military involvement and criminal involvement by investigating the importance of acquiring the more complete 'respectability package' that includes marriage as well as military experience and variations among White and Black respondents. Using data from Waves I and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; n = 5,801), analyses use logistic regression models to assess asso…
Continuing education
Sutherland's differential association theory and the life‐course perspective have at times been conceptualized as contrasting theories of criminal behavior. I argue instead that our understanding of delinquency, the dynamics underlying criminal persistence and desistance, and intergenerational patterns will be enhanced by a more explicit integration of these two traditions. I focus on family processes as these are foundational intimate relationsh…
When Worlds Collide
Recent increases in the average age at first marriage have created an extended period during which young adults frequently continue to socialize with friends, even as romantic ties typically become increasingly serious. Nevertheless, little research has focused on some of the challenges associated with navigating these two social worlds simultaneously. The current study expanded the traditional lens of social learning theory to investigate associ…
Neighborhood Norms, Disadvantage, and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration
Most theoretical treatments of intimate partner violence (IPV) focus on individual-level processes. More recently, scholars have begun to examine the role of macrolevel factors. Results of that research indicate that social ties facilitate the diffusion of cultural norms-including tolerance of deviance/violence-across neighborhoods. Yet the influence of the neighborhood normative climate extends beyond norms regarding the use of violence, shaping…
Linking parental incarceration and family dynamics associated with intergenerational transmission
Children experiencing parental incarceration face numerous additional disadvantages, but researchers have often relied on these other co‐occurring factors primarily as controls. In this article, we focus on the intimate links between crime and incarceration, as well as on the broader family context within which parental incarceration often unfolds. Thus, parents’ drug use and criminal behavior that precedes and may follow incarceration periods ma…
Inducing jealousy and intimate partner violence among young adults
Jealousy has been linked to a number of deleterious relationship outcomes; yet, few studies have explored the broader ways in which inducing jealousy affects intimate relationships. Using data on 892 young adults from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study, we examined correlates and consequences of intentionally inducing jealousy in intimate relationships. Results indicated that factors both unique and internal to the intimate dyad and those …
Gender, Crime, and Desistance
his article analyzes data derived from the first detailed long-term follow-up of a sample of serious adolescent female delinquents and similarly situated males. Neither marital attachment nor job stability, factors frequently associated with male desistance from crime, were strongly related to female or male desistance. A symbolic-interactionist perspective on desistance is developed as a counterpoint to Sampson and Laub's theory of informal soci…
Relationships in Adolescence
In this chapter I review recent research on the nature, meaning, and impact of extrafamilial relationships during adolescence. I use findings of quantitative and qualitative studies to develop the idea that close friendships, wider networks of peers, and romantic relationships have distinct meanings and significance for the developing adolescent. Sociologists' work inevitably focuses attention on the ways in which the adolescent's social addresse…
Family Relationships and Delinquency
Family interaction and attachment assume prominent roles in social control theories of delinquency. However, the degree of conceptualization and the measurement strategies generally employed arguably are inadequate to capture the real dynamic quality of such relationships and to specify their effects on delinquency involvement. The purpose of this research is to distinguish more precisely those family interaction mechanisms which are associated w…
Gender and the Meanings of Adolescent Romantic Relationships
Many studies of the adolescent period have focused on peer interactions and relationships, but less is known about the character of adolescents' early dating experiences. Researchers have recently explored girls' views of romance and sexuality, but studies of boys' perspectives are noticeably lacking. Theorizing in this area leads to the expectation that as adolescents cross over into heterosexual territory, boys will do so, on average, with grea…
School Bonding, Race, and Delinquency
While there is considerable evidence that blacks experience school in qualitatively distinct ways from whites, there has been a general failure to examine racial variation in the impact of school variables on juvenile misconduct. The purpose of this research is to describe the manner in which school bonding affects delinquent conduct, focusing in particular on the role of the school in the delinquent involvement of black youths. Our orientation i…
Friendships and Delinquency
Major delinquency theories differ significantly in the ways in which they have portrayed the friendship patterns of male and, more recently, female delinquents. Psychological studies and control theory have depicted delinquents' peer relationships as inadequate or exploitive and cold, whereas subcultural theories generally emphasize the intimacy and solidarity of the delinquent gang. In spite of its pivotal theoretical role, few studies have actu…
Hooking Up
More than one half of sexually active teens have had sexual partners they are not dating. However, remarkably little is known about the nature of these sexual relationships. Using survey and qualitative data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study the authors contrast the qualities of dating sexual relationships and sexual relationships that occur out-side the dating context. They find that adolescents having sex outside of the dating cont…
Emotions and Crime over the Life Course
A symbolic interactionist perspective on the emotions is presented that highlights their social character, forges links to cognitive processes, and suggests ways in which emotions influence long‐term patterns of criminal involvement. This neo‐Meadian perspective contrasts with theories of desistance that focus on the role of informal social controls and develops the view of an emotional self that flourishes somewhat independent of the major role …
Adolescent Romantic Relationships and Delinquency Involvement
While much attention has centered on the role of peer influence for adolescent delinquency, that of romantic partners has been largely neglected. Recent analyses of romantic relationships during the adolescent period suggest their general importance to development; research highlights that adolescents themselves frequently describe these relations as relatively intimate and influential. Thus, while classic theoretical frameworks such as different…
Changes in Friendship Relations Over the Life Course
We analyze life history narratives and structured data derived from a study of serious female and male offenders interviewed when incarcerated as adolescents and followed up thirteen years later. We highlight shifts in the influence of friends and in the nature of friendship choices, and suggest how these changes can facilitate desistance processes. While key events (e.g., marriage) are important to an understanding of such changes, shifts in the…
The Changing Institution of Marriage
Cohabitation has become part of the pathway toward marriage. Prior work focuses on expectations to marry and has ignored cohabitation. Although most young adults are not replacing marriage with cohabitation, but instead cohabit and then marry, it is important to study adolescents' joint expectations to cohabit as well as marry. Our analyses draw on recently collected data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (N = 1,293). We find that ad…
Relationship Churning in Emerging Adulthood
We build on the emerging adulthood and marital reconciliation literatures to examine two forms of relationship instability: reconciliations and sex with an ex. Analyzing recent data on young adult daters and cohabitors (n = 792), we find that nearly half report a reconciliation (breakup followed by reunion) and over half of those who break up continue a sexual relationship (sex with an ex). In this young adult sample, cohabitors experience greate…
Adolescents' involvement in non-romantic sexual activity
The Wider Circle of Friends in Adolescence
Adolescents interact with a variety of peers, in addition to the close friends generally emphasized in the literature. In this article I contrast the style and content of the communications directed to close friends and other youths characterized by varying degress of "nearness and remoteness." The handwritten messages found in high school yearbooks are analyzed and used to illustrate some of the distinct features of each type of discourse. This …
A Life‐course Perspective on Spirituality and Desistance From Crime
Spirituality is a component of many drug and alcohol treatment strategies, and faith‐based programming is also common within prison settings. Yet research on religiosity—crime linkages has often relied on general youth or adult samples or has included a short time line for gauging positive effects. Life‐course researchers focused on serious delinquents, in turn, have often emphasized other factors associated with long‐term crime patterns, such as…
Preadolescent Parenting Strategies and Teens' Dating and Sexual Initiation
In this article we examine the effects of preadolescent parenting strategies on timing of adolescents' dating and sexual initiation. Using data from the 2 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (1987-1988 and 1992-1994) involving interviews with parents as well as adolescents 4 years later, we estimate the effects of preadolescent parental support, coercive control, and monitoring on the timing of teens' dating and sexual initiat…
On Complicating the Relationship between Liberation and Delinquency
The popular notion that the women's movement is responsible for an increase in female crime oversimplifies the concept of liberation. Distinctions are made between women's traditionality or nontraditionality in various roles—societal, familial or interpersonal, and within the realm of the criminal act itself. Data derived from a questionnaire administered in three urban high schools and two state institutions for girls suggest that there is littl…
Relationship Churning, Physical Violence, and Verbal Abuse in Young Adult Relationships
Young adults' romantic relationships are often unstable, commonly including breakup -reconcile patterns. From the developmental perspective of emerging adulthood exploration, such relationship "churning" is expected; however, minor conflicts are more common in churning relationships. Using data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (N = 792), the authors tested whether relationship churning is associated with more serious conflict, such …
Drug Use and Desistance Processes
Sampson and Laub's age‐graded theory of informal social control emphasizes the importance of adult social bonds such as marriage and stable employment in redirecting behavior in a more prosocial direction. Heavy alcohol use has also been shown to influence persistent patterns of offending as well as more episodic offending across the life course. Sampson and Laub's life‐course theory emphasizes the negative impact of alcohol use on marital and em…
Identity, Peer Relationships, and Adolescent Girls' Sexual Behavior
The idea of a sexual double standard emphasizes that men have more sexual freedom, whereas women are subject to social sanctions for the same behaviors. This research uses a sample of adolescent women to examine the social consequences of reporting a greater number of sex partners. The research explores whether there are broader social costs and feelings of low self-worth associated with a high number of sex partners, and also focuses on characte…
The Family and Peer Relations of Black Adolescents
Analyse comparative des relations familiales des adolescents americains de race blanche et de race noire. Consequences de ces types de relations familiales et sociales sur le developpement psychologique de l'adolescent et sur son avenir (problemes de la jeunesse, notamment la delinquance)
The Age–IPV Curve
The characteristics of romantic relationships associated with teen dating violence
A Comparative Analysis of Male and Female Delinquency
The historically dominant and generally accepted view is that males are much more likely than females to commit delinquent acts, and that when females deviate their misconduct is significantly less serious than that of males. This paper examines the recent contention that the delinquent behavior of males and females is more similar than assumed. Self-report questionnaires were administered in 1977 to a sample of 822 male and female adolescents se…
Self-Esteem, Depressive Symptoms, and Adolescents' Sexual Onset
We examine whether self-esteem and depressive symptoms influence sexual onset when important controls such as age, dating, race, and income are examined. Analyses are based on the first two waves of the restricted-use sample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. We examine adolescents who reported at wave 1 that they had not had sexual intercourse. Using logistic regression models run separately for males and for females, we fi…
The Sense of Injustice? An Analysis of Juveniles' Reactions to the Justice System
The paper analyzes three juvenile justice organizations‐ the police, Abstract juvenile probation, and juvenile court‐from the point of View of the clients of the justice system. While much of the delinquency literature (in particular David Matza's notion of the sense of injustice) suggests a rlegntive response by youths who have been in contact with the system, the present resenrch found that youths with greater system contact actually expressed …
Auto THEFT Offender and Offense Characteristics
Few empirical studies describe auto thieves. The most influential and frequently cited research is that by Wittenberg and Blusterier who characterize auto theft as a “favored‐group” delinquency. The findings of the present study challenge this conclusion. Although the majority of those arrested for auto theft are white. blacks are disproportionately represented; most thieves come from lower‐class neighborhoods: and the distribution of juvenile th…
Girls, Guys and Gangs
innovation.
On Complicating the Relationship between Liberation and Delinquency
The popular notion that the women's movement is responsible for an increase in female crime oversimplifies the concept of liberation. Distinctions are made between women's traditionality or nontraditionality in various roles—societal, familial or interpersonal, and within the realm of the criminal act itself. Data derived from a questionnaire administered in three urban high schools and two state institutions for girls suggest that there is littl…
A Comparative Analysis of Male and Female Delinquency
The historically dominant and generally accepted view is that males are much more likely than females to commit delinquent acts, and that when females deviate their misconduct is significantly less serious than that of males. This paper examines the recent contention that the delinquent behavior of males and females is more similar than assumed. Self-report questionnaires were administered in 1977 to a sample of 822 male and female adolescents se…
Sanctioning the High-Status Deviant
Symposium Review
Symposium Review
Friendships and Delinquency
Major delinquency theories differ significantly in the ways in which they have portrayed the friendship patterns of male and, more recently, female delinquents. Psychological studies and control theory have depicted delinquents' peer relationships as inadequate or exploitive and cold, whereas subcultural theories generally emphasize the intimacy and solidarity of the delinquent gang. In spite of its pivotal theoretical role, few studies have actu…
Family Relationships and Delinquency
Family interaction and attachment assume prominent roles in social control theories of delinquency. However, the degree of conceptualization and the measurement strategies generally employed arguably are inadequate to capture the real dynamic quality of such relationships and to specify their effects on delinquency involvement. The purpose of this research is to distinguish more precisely those family interaction mechanisms which are associated w…
Delinquency as a Risk Factor in Teenage Pregnancy
Drawing upon longitudinal data collected from the same boys and girls in their early (13–14) and later (18–19) years of adolescence, this research models age at sexual debut, contraceptive risk-taking, and teenage pregnancy on the basis of family background and delinquency involvement during the early years of adolescence. The data also allow for control over the influence of social class while studying the effects of race, and vice-versa. Regres…
School Bonding, Race, and Delinquency
While there is considerable evidence that blacks experience school in qualitatively distinct ways from whites, there has been a general failure to examine racial variation in the impact of school variables on juvenile misconduct. The purpose of this research is to describe the manner in which school bonding affects delinquent conduct, focusing in particular on the role of the school in the delinquent involvement of black youths. Our orientation i…
The Family and Peer Relations of Black Adolescents
Analyse comparative des relations familiales des adolescents americains de race blanche et de race noire. Consequences de ces types de relations familiales et sociales sur le developpement psychologique de l'adolescent et sur son avenir (problemes de la jeunesse, notamment la delinquance)
The Wider Circle of Friends in Adolescence
Adolescents interact with a variety of peers, in addition to the close friends generally emphasized in the literature. In this article I contrast the style and content of the communications directed to close friends and other youths characterized by varying degress of "nearness and remoteness." The handwritten messages found in high school yearbooks are analyzed and used to illustrate some of the distinct features of each type of discourse. This …
School Talk
Attitudes toward Childbearing among Young Parents
H. Theodore Groat, Peggy C. Giordano, Stephen A. Cernkovich, M. D. Pugh, Steven P. Swinford, Attitudes toward Childbearing among Young Parents, Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Aug., 1997), pp. 568-581
The Quality of Adolescent Friendships
While differing in etiological emphasis, a variety of theoretical perspectives seem to coalesce around the notion that youthful friendships are "good" for development. Sociometric studies have documented that low status youth are at risk for a variety of negative outcomes, but there has been little longitudinal research focused on the qualities of youths' relations with peers. We conducted interviews focusing on adolescents' relations with their …
Delinquency, Identity, and Women's Involvement in Relationship Violence
This study focuses on factors associated with women's self‐reports of relationship violence “perpetration.” We analyzed data derived from personal interviews with 942 respondents who were originally contacted when they were adolescents and then 10 years later as young adults (N=721). Level of delinquency in adolescence was a signicant predictor of adult reports of involvement in relationship violence, for both male and female respondents. In addi…
The Relationship Context of Contraceptive Use at First Intercourse
CONTEXT: Despite widespread efforts to increase contraceptive use to prevent both pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among sexually active adolescents, most prior work examining adolescent contraceptive use does not explicitly recognize that sexual decision-making inherently involves both partners in a couple. METHODS: An analytic sample of 1,593 females who first had intercourse during adolescence (prior to age 18) was drawn from the 19…
Harsh Physical Discipline in Childhood and Violence in Later Romantic Involvements
This study examines the impact that experiencing harsh physical discipline in childhood and engaging in problem behaviors during adolescence and young adulthood have on experiencing and perpetrating intimate violence. Using LISREL 7, we tested a model based on social learning theory, Freudian theory, and theories of deviance. The 608 cases analyzed are from a longitudinal study of adolescents conducted in 1982 and 1992-1993. The results suggest t…
Stability and Change in Antisocial Behavior
This longitudinal research, based on two samples of respondents who were differentially involved in delinquency as teenagers, identifies latent trait and life‐course correlates of the persistence of antisocial behavior into young adulthood. The data show that prior delinquency is a stable predictor among respondents in both our household and institutional samples. However, although social bonding has a substantial impact on continued criminality …
Preadolescent Parenting Strategies and Teens' Dating and Sexual Initiation
In this article we examine the effects of preadolescent parenting strategies on timing of adolescents' dating and sexual initiation. Using data from the 2 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (1987-1988 and 1992-1994) involving interviews with parents as well as adolescents 4 years later, we estimate the effects of preadolescent parental support, coercive control, and monitoring on the timing of teens' dating and sexual initiat…
Gender, Crime, and Desistance
his article analyzes data derived from the first detailed long-term follow-up of a sample of serious adolescent female delinquents and similarly situated males. Neither marital attachment nor job stability, factors frequently associated with male desistance from crime, were strongly related to female or male desistance. A symbolic-interactionist perspective on desistance is developed as a counterpoint to Sampson and Laub's theory of informal soci…
Changes in Friendship Relations Over the Life Course
We analyze life history narratives and structured data derived from a study of serious female and male offenders interviewed when incarcerated as adolescents and followed up thirteen years later. We highlight shifts in the influence of friends and in the nature of friendship choices, and suggest how these changes can facilitate desistance processes. While key events (e.g., marriage) are important to an understanding of such changes, shifts in the…
Contraceptive Self-Efficacy
This research investigates the relationship between contraceptive self-efficacy and contraceptive use, measured one year later, among adolescent boys and girls. Data are obtained from the two waves of the restricted use sample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 3,577). Employing multiple regression and logistic regression strategies, we examine whether demographic and background characteristics influence contraceptive se…
Psychology (104 works) · Developmental psychology (84 works) · Social Psychology (72 works) · Medicine (48 works) · Social Psychology (45 works) · Sociology (44 works) · Intimate Partner and Family Violence (42 works) · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (38 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (38 works) · Demography (31 works)