“Feeling Disorder” as a Comparative and Contingent Process

Abstract

We explore the effects of neighborhood social disorder on internalizing symptoms among urban youth by focusing on three questions. First, we ask whether the impact of social disorder on internalizing symptoms results from comparisons with conditions measured locally or across the entire city.  Second, we consider whether neighborhood collective efficacy modifies disorder’s effect on internalizing symptoms. Finally,  we assess whether these effects vary by gender. Analyses of survey data on 2,367 youth from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods indicate that social disorder is positively associated with girls’ internalizing symptoms when measured as a deviation from a neighborhood cluster (NC - two to three census tracts) mean. High collective efficacy within girls’ NCs attenuates disorder effects on their internalizing symptoms. We find no evidence of disorder or collective efficacy effects on boys’ internalizing symptoms.