NCJ Number
85958
Date Published
1980
Length
256 pages
Annotation
The volume is a report of a study designed to test several hypotheses derived from a previously formulated general theory of deviant behavior. The theory centers on the reciprocal relationship between self-attitudes and deviant behavior.
Abstract
The theory simultaneously considers a broad range of deviant patterns as responses to self-attitudes and as antecdents of changes in self-attitudes. The theoretical statement considers the origin of the self-esteem motive, determinants of positive and negative self-attitudes, the consequences of negative self-attitudes that predispose an individual to adopt deviant response patterns for change in self-attitudes and continuity of deviant patterns. Longitudinal data collected from adolescents are examined, including the selection of adolescents, their characteristics, attrition, data collection procedures, operational definitions, and modes of analysis. The analysis supports the prevalence of self-esteem motivated responses. Discussion covers factors that influence the development of self-attitudes and variables intervening between the genesis of negative self-attitudes and subsequent deviant response patterns. Data are featured that support the general hypothesis that deviant responses have self-enhancing consequences that presumably confirm the person in the deviant pattern. Tables, author and subject indexes, and over 250 references are provided. (Publisher summary modified)