Mind Your Measures and Mechanisms: Adjudicating Normative Influence on Adolescent Delinquency Through Meta-Analysis

• In Event: Advancing Social Learning Theory: Beliefs, Norms and Morality as Causes of Crime

Abstract

This project unites theoretical mechanisms and measures from moral/social psychology and criminology related to potential parent, friend, and peer socialization effects on adolescent delinquency by utilizing meta-analytic techniques. Specifically, injunctive (beliefs concerning appropriate action) and descriptive (actual behavior) norms are examined to determine whether such meta-averaged estimates vary significantly across types of offending behavior, normative source, measurement specificity, data temporality, and publication status for more than 350 studies across a variety of scholarly disciplines. While prior topic-adjacent criminological meta-analyses exist regarding overall delinquent effects, they do not focus solely upon adolescent samples or with these measurement specifications. Thus, scholars and professionals interested in understanding which types of norms (i.e., injunctive or descriptive) from whom (i.e., parents, friends, or peers) for which offenses (i.e., violent, cyber, sexual, property, etc.) should glean valuable insights into these specific nuances related to adolescent offending. Additionally, this work employs modern meta-analytic techniques and "best practice" procedures that will hopefully serve as an example/guide for scholars interested in similar endeavors.

Author

• Mitchell Allen Farrell, The Citadel