Influence of Peer Reactions and Student Attitudes on Student Deviance: Differences Between Japan and the United States

The current study examines the cross-cultural applicability of Akers’ social learning theory in explaining why Japanese commit fewer deviant acts than Americans. It is predicted that deviance would be less common in Japan because Japanese have less favorable attitudes toward deviance, which in turn are attributable to less favorable peer reactions to deviance. Analyses of comparable survey data from college students in Japan (N = 583) and the United States (N = 615) provide mixed support for our arguments. As expected, Japanese students had less favorable attitudes toward deviance because they had peers who reacted less favorably to deviance. Contrary to expectation, however, even after controlling for student attitudes toward deviance and peer reactions to deviance, the initially large difference between the two samples in student deviance remained significant. This was at least partly because, in Japan, compared with the United States, peer reactions and student attitudes had significantly less influence on student deviance.