NCJ Number
207225
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 21 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2004 Pages: 603-635
Date Published
September 2004
Length
33 pages
Annotation
This study assessed the indirect effects of school performance, deviant peer pressure, and self-control on the relationship between IQ and delinquency.
Abstract
Although criminological research has established a clear link between IQ and delinquency, researchers have yet to understand the mechanisms through which IQ impacts delinquency. Most research on IQ and delinquency has examined IQ as a function of school performance, the current study expands this literature by assessing the degree to which three variables (school performance, deviant peer pressure, and self-control) specified by three major criminology theories (social bond, social learning, and self-control) are able to explain the relationship between IQ and delinquency. Data were drawn from the 1994 Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) dataset, which included 1,725 respondents who were age 10 years or older during the 1992 survey. Results of statistical analyses indicate that IQ has no direct effect upon delinquent behavior, but rather exercises its impact on delinquency indirectly through poor school performance, pressure from deviant peers, and low self-control. School performance demonstrated the most significant indirect effect of IQ on delinquency, which is consistent with the most popular explanation for the IQ-delinquency link found in the literature, the “school performance model.” Thus, the findings indicate that elements of social bond theory and social learning theory provide empirically defensible explanations for the relationship between IQ and delinquency. However, neither theory on its own can fully account for the IQ-delinquency link. Future research should focus on the theoretical integration of empirically validated perspectives, such as social bond and social learning theories. Figure, tables, references, appendix