Anticipated Guilt and Parenting: An Etiological Approach to the Gender Gap in Delinquency

• In Event: Poster Session II

Abstract

Research consistently finds that females commit less crime than males, yet research attempting to explain this gap remains inconclusive. Some research finds evidence that the gender gap may reflect gender differences in anticipated guilt for the commission of crime, but little research has yet attempted to explore the origins of gender differences in anticipated guilt. The current study addresses this issue by examining (1) whether differential parenting is able to account for gender differences in anticipated guilt and (2) whether gender conditions the relationship between parenting and anticipated guilt In particular, we used tobit regression to examine the above mediating and moderating effects using data collected from a sample of middle and high school youth from the Northeastern region of the United States. Results indicate that, while multiple aspects of parenting appear to be associated with anticipated guilt, they do not significantly mediate the relationship between gender and anticipated guilt.  Given these results, it appears that other unmeasured social and/or biological factors contribute to this gender gap in anticipated guilt. Gender, however, does appear to moderate the relationship between parenting and guilt, with authoritative and authoritarian parenting having a significant influence on anticipated guilt among females, but not among males.

Authors

• Reeve Kennedy, University of New Hampshire

• Cesar Rebellon, University of New Hampshire

• Karen T Van Gundy, University of New Hampshire

• Ellen S Cohn, University of New Hampshire