The Role of Social Bonding in Shaping Behavioral Outcomes of Adolescents

• In Event: The Role of Social Bonds and Self Esteem in Explaining Juvenile Delinquency and Educational Attainment

Abstract

Implied within social control theory is that all adolescents have a natural impulse towards deviant behavior and if it was not for pro-social bonds provided through family, peers and school, they would act on that impulse toward deviance (Bahr, et al., 2005: 531). Of the four elements of the bond, attachment to parents is of particular interest. Because parents represent the first and perhaps most salient agent of socialization that children encounter, the bond to parents may be especially consequential for subsequent bonding and delinquency. This study examined the relationship between attachment and deviance, both to evaluate and shed to light on social bonding theory. The results exhibit more complexity in the relationship between attachment and family than the theory currently suggests.

Author

• Emily Restivo, New York Institute of Technology