NCJ Number
90144
Date Published
1980
Length
130 pages
Annotation
Following an examination of significant approaches to the understanding of delinquency, this study identifies psychosocial factors underlying juvenile delinquency through testing of a sample of 150 institutionalized delinquents and 150 nondelinquents in India.
Abstract
The study's hypotheses regarding factors bearing on delinquency were tested by using Raven's Standards Progressive Matrices, the Wallach and Kogan Creativity instruments, the Personality Inventory of Eysenck, Whipple's Suggestibility Test, Cantrills' Ladder Test of Level of Aspiration, the Ideal Self Congruence Test using an adjective checklist, the Osgood Semantic Differential and the Cognitive Dissonance Test, and the schedule constructed for this study to elicit information on social environment. The study found that the psychological factors contributing to juvenile delinquency are the presence of extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and criminal propensity. Other psychological factors involved in delinquency are greater creativity, lower intelligence and level of aspiration, high suggestibility, greater cognitive dissonance, and an unfavorable attitude toward family. The social and personal attitudes contributing to delinquency are educational level of parents, order of birth, and an unstable and emotionally deprived family. The educational status of the father, juveniles' relationship with parents, an underprivileged community background, juveniles' estimate of their parents' concern for their welfare, and movie attendance were also found to have a significant relationship to delinquency. Tabular data, about 170 references, and a subject index are provided.