Summary: Participation in arts and cultural activities—such as dance, drama, reading, museum visits or concerts—reduces the likelihood that adolescents will take part in antisocial or criminalized behavior up to two years later, according to a new analysis of large, nationally representative US cohorts.
Source: UCL
Teenagers who take part in arts and cultural activities—ranging from school drama and music groups to visiting museums, reading for pleasure and attending concerts—are less likely to engage in antisocial or criminalized behavior up to two years later, researchers at University College London (UCL) and the University of Florida report.
Published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Youth and Adolescence, the study analyzed responses from more than 25,000 adolescents across two long-term US datasets. By examining repeated survey responses over multiple years, the team assessed how regular engagement with arts and culture relates to later reports of misbehavior, fighting, stealing, and other criminalized actions.
Researchers created a comprehensive measure of arts and cultural engagement that covered many activities: involvement in school clubs, orchestras and choirs; taking arts classes outside school; dancing and acting; attending cinemas, concerts and museums; as well as reading for pleasure. Higher overall engagement across these activities was linked with lower self-reported antisocial behavior at the initial survey and at follow-up one and two years later.
The analysis also found that adolescents with greater arts engagement tended to score higher on self-control and to view antisocial behavior less positively. Both stronger self-control and negative attitudes toward antisocial actions have previously been associated with reduced risk of offending, suggesting plausible pathways through which arts involvement may support safer, healthier development.
Lead and senior authors emphasize that these associations remained after accounting for a wide range of potential confounders, including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, parental education, geographic location and prior antisocial behavior. That persistence supports the robustness of the observed relationship between arts participation and reduced antisocial outcomes, although the authors note the observational design cannot prove causation.
Senior author Dr. Daisy Fancourt (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) highlights that earlier research has already shown benefits of arts engagement for adolescent mental health and wellbeing. This new study adds evidence that arts and cultural activities are also associated with lower prevalence of antisocial and criminalized behaviors in adolescence.
Lead author Dr. Jess Bone (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) explains that their definition of arts and cultural engagement was deliberately broad to capture the full range of experiences adolescents might regularly take part in. Making these activities widely accessible, the authors argue, is particularly important given funding and access pressures since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The research used two nationally representative longitudinal datasets: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. Together these cohorts included more than 25,000 participants who completed questionnaires between 1988 and 2002. Average ages at baseline were approximately 14–15 years. In one cohort, roughly half of adolescents reported at least one antisocial or criminalized behavior in the prior year, with an average frequency of 1.6 incidents.
Although stronger arts engagement coincided with better self-control and less favorable attitudes toward antisocial actions, the authors caution that mediation tests in this observational design cannot definitively establish those factors as causal mechanisms. Nevertheless, prior research identifies a number of plausible processes through which arts participation could reduce antisocial risk: increased empathy and prosocial behavior, lower boredom and disengagement, improved self-esteem, and better emotion regulation.
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Source: UCL
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Original Research: Open access. “Arts and Cultural Engagement, Reportedly Antisocial or Criminalized Behaviors, and Potential Mediators in Two Longitudinal Cohorts of Adolescents” by Jessica K. Bone et al., Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
Abstract
Arts and Cultural Engagement, Reportedly Antisocial or Criminalized Behaviors, and Potential Mediators in Two Longitudinal Cohorts of Adolescents
Arts and cultural engagement may be an effective strategy for reducing or preventing reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors in adolescence. Much prior work has focused on structured arts interventions; fewer studies have examined arts and cultural engagement across large, population-based longitudinal samples.
This study assessed associations in two nationally representative cohorts: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 10,610; 50% female, 72% White; ages 11–21, mean = 15.07) and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (n = 15,214; 50% female, 73% White; ages 13–16, mean = 14.38). Structural equation modelling explored two potential mediating pathways: self-control and attitudes toward antisocial behaviors.
Greater arts and cultural engagement was associated with fewer reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors, improved self-control scores, and more negative perceptions of antisocial actions both concurrently and one to two years later. The findings suggest that arts and cultural engagement may support positive adolescent development and help reduce the risk of antisocial or criminalized behaviors.