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Individual in context: the role of impulse control on the association between the home, school, and neighborhood developmental contexts and adolescent delinquency
Fine, Adam Mahler, Alissa Steinberg, laurence Frick, Paul Cauffman, Elizabeth
Fine, Adam
Mahler, Alissa
Steinberg, laurence
Frick, Paul
Cauffman, Elizabeth
Abstract
Social ecological theories and decades of supporting research suggest that contexts exert a powerful influence on adolescent delinquency. Individual traits, such as impulse control, also pose a developmental disadvantage to adolescents through increasing risk of delinquency. However, such individual differences may also predispose some youth to struggle more in adverse environments, but also to excel in enriched environments. Despite the prominence of impulse control in both developmental and criminological literatures, researchers are only beginning to consider impulse control as an individual characteristic that may affect developmental outcomes in response to environmental input. Using a racially diverse (Latino 46 %; Black 37 %; White 15 %; other race 2 %) sample of 1,216 first-time, male, juvenile offenders from the longitudinal Crossroads Study, this study examined key interactions between baseline impulse control and the home, school, and neighborhood contexts in relation to delinquency within the following 6 months. The results indicated that even after accounting for prior delinquency, youth in more negative home, school, and neighborhood contexts engaged in the same amount of delinquency in the following 6 months regardless of their level of impulse control. However, the effects of positive home, school, and neighborhood contexts on delinquency were stronger for youth with moderate or high impulse control and minimally affected youth with low impulse control. The findings suggest two risk factors for delinquency: low impulse control as a dispositional vulnerability that operates independently of developmental context, and a second that results from a contextual vulnerability
Keywords
Date
2017
Type
Journal article
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence
Book
Volume
Issue
Page Range
1488-1502
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education (ILSTE)
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
File Access
Controlled