Elsevier

Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume 41, Issue 1, January–February 2013, Pages 24-32
Journal of Criminal Justice

Maternal versus adolescent reports of self-control: Implications for testing the general theory of crime

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2012.10.003Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

The measurement of Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) concept of self-control has received significant attention. However, research has not yet compared and explored the implications of using self-reported versus other-reported measures of self-control. Addressing this gap is the goal of the present study.

Method

Using data drawn from a sample of U.S. families across 10 cities, the current study uses structural equation models to examine whether identical indicators of maternal and adolescent reports of self-control are differentially related to delinquency and parental socialization.

Results

Two key findings emerged. First, the strength of the relationship between self-control and delinquency is substantively weaker when maternal reports are used in lieu of adolescent reports. Second, a comprehensive measure of parental socialization--capturing dimensions of monitoring, hostility, and warmth--is strongly related to adolescent reported self-control but only weakly related to maternal reported self-control.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that substantive conclusions about the strength of the relationships between self-control, delinquency, and parenting are dependent on the source of the measure of self-control.

Highlights

► The strength of the association between self-control and delinquency varies by informant type. ► The strength of the association between parenting and self-control varies by informant type. ► Self-reported and other-reported measures of self-control cannot be used interchangeably.

Introduction

Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) general theory of crime has received significant attention, and many studies provide evidence in support of the theory's two primary claims. First, a large body of research finds a positive association between low self-control and offending (Burt et al., 2006, Grasmick et al., 1993, Pratt and Cullen, 2000, Vazsonyi et al., 2001). Second, a growing number of studies find a positive correlation between effective parenting practices and self-control (Hay, 2001, Hay and Forrest, 2006, Meldrum, 2008, Perrone et al., 2004, Unnever et al., 2003, Vazsonyi and Huang, 2010). Yet, several challenges have also been put forth, including issues related to the stability thesis (Burt et al., 2006, Na and Paternoster, 2012, Turner and Piquero, 2002), the non-parental sources of self-control (Beaver et al., 2009, Burt et al., 2006, Gibson et al., 2010, Pratt et al., 2004, Turner et al., 2005), and the extent to which other theoretical variables remain as important correlates of offending after accounting for self-control (Meldrum et al., 2009, Pratt and Cullen, 2000).

An additional area of research that has received significant attention is the measurement of self-control (Delisi et al., 2003, Hirschi, 2004, Marcus, 2003, Piquero, 2008, Piquero and Bouffard, 2007, Piquero et al., 2000). While some researchers have focused on assessing the unidimensionality of self-control (Longshore et al., 1996, Piquero and Rosay, 1998), others have devoted attention to the distinction between behavioral and attitudinal measures of self-control and whether the strength of the relationship between self-control and offending varies according to which measure is being employed. This line of research reveals that there is no significant difference in effect sizes between behavioral and attitudinal measures of self-control when predicting offending behaviors (Pratt and Cullen, 2000, Tittle et al., 2003).

While researchers have focused on these measurement issues, what has yet to be considered is the potential differential predictive validity of self-reported and other-reported measures of self-control. According to Hirschi and Gottfredson (1993:48), self-reported measures should be less valid for those who are low in self-control because “… self-control itself affects survey responses,” suggesting that self-control should be measured via other sources. Likewise, Wright et al. (1999:490) state “…the best measures would be other-reported, direct measures of self-control: for example a teacher or parent assessing a child's impulsivity or lack of persistence. Because such measures are reported by others, they do not suffer from low self-control reporting bias…other-reported, direct measures should be used whenever possible, and the findings produced by them should be deemed most trustworthy.” In this regard, Piquero and colleagues (2000) found that individuals with lower levels of self-control respond differently to the Grasmick et al. (1993) self-reported attitudinal self-control items than those who have higher levels of self-control, a finding that supports the arguments made by Hirschi and Gottfredson (1993) and Wright et al. (1999) that other-reported measures of self-control are preferable to self-reported measures.

At the same time, it is also reasonable to question whether parents are in the position to provide accurate estimations of adolescent self-control. Given the increasing amount of time that adolescents spend away from parents, the ability for parents to accurately report on the attitudes or the behavior of teenagers might be suspect. On this point, Achenbach and colleagues (1987) found that correlations between parent and child reports of behavior were stronger than correlations between parent and adolescent reports of behavior. Furthermore, reports from parents about adolescent behavior may potentially be influenced by emotional states, attributional style, or personality characteristics of parents. The same low self-control reporting bias that Piquero and colleagues (2000) detected among self-reports of self-control might also be relevant for the reporting on the behavior and attitudes of others. Thus, while self-reported indicators of self-control might be biased, it is also possible that parental reports of child and adolescent self-control could be biased as well.

In light of these considerations, it is surprising that no attention has been directed at investigating the potential differential predictive validity of self and other-reported measures of self-control as either independent variables (predicting offending) or dependent variables (being predicted by parental socialization). For example, while Pratt and Cullen's (2000) meta-analysis assessed the differential predictive validity of attitudinal versus behavioral measures of self-control, the study was unable to consider whether the source of the information used to measure self-control conditioned its effect on offending, as nearly every study included in the meta-analysis was based upon self-reports.

The vast majority of studies that have examined the relationship between self-control and offending since the meta-analysis by Pratt and Cullen (2000) continue to be based solely on self-reported measures (for exceptions see Fagan and Wright, 2012, Shekarkhar and Gibson, 2011, Wright et al., 1999). On the other hand, a far greater number of studies have employed other-reported measures of self-control when examining the relationship between parental socialization and self-control (e.g., Chapple, 2005, Gibson et al., 2010, Hay and Forrest, 2006, Pratt et al., 2004). Yet, as with studies assessing the relationship between self-control and offending, no systematic comparison has been made between the two measures. In other words, scholars have not explored potential differences in the relationship between parental socialization and self-control as a function of the source of the reporter of self-control. This is no small matter, as considering the validity of a measure of self-control as a dependent variable being predicted by parenting practices is just as important as determining the validity of a measure of self-control being used as an independent variable to predict delinquency. In other words, to the extent that a measure is valid as an independent variable, it should also be valid as a dependent variable. To the extent that results are substantively different across informants, research asserting 1) the theoretical viability of Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) model, whereby parenting predicts self-control and self-control in turn predicts delinquency, and 2) the empirical significance attributed to self-control relative to competing theoretical variables (Pratt & Cullen, 2000) may require qualification. This would be especially true if the strength of the association between 1) parenting and self-control and 2) self-control and offending was substantively different depending upon the source of the measure of self-control.

Section snippets

The current study

Researchers have yet to consider how self- versus other-reported indicators of self-control influences the results of models testing propositions from the general theory of crime.1

Data

The data used in this study come from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), which was conducted from 1991 through 2007. The main purpose of the SECCYD was to examine how variations in early child care are related to developmental outcomes. As the study progressed, a significant amount of attention was also given to the collection of data on child and adolescent development, parenting practices, and delinquency.

Self-Control

The measure of self-control consists of 5 indicators drawn from survey items answered separately by both mothers and adolescents. These items come from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) (Achenbach, 1991), which is the basis for the shorter Behavior Problem Index from which identical indicators of self-control have been used in other studies (Chapple, 2005, Hay and Forrest, 2006, Pratt et al., 2004, Turner and Piquero, 2002). Mothers (and adolescents) were asked to respond to various

Analytic strategy

To examine the relationships between parental socialization, self-control, and delinquency we use structural equation modeling with latent variables. We first develop measurement models of the respective latent factors for each of our research questions and then estimate structural relationships between the respective latent factors. We use latent variable models to address dependencies among unmeasured variables. For each indicator of the latent construct, we allow the error terms to be

Measurement models of self-control and delinquency

The measurement portion of the model for self-control and delinquency specifies that the adolescent report of self-control and the maternal report of self-control are latent variables with 5 indicators and the adolescent report of delinquency is a latent variable with 16 indicators. Each indicator of the corresponding latent variable is a linear function of the latent variable plus random measurement error. For the self-control construct, same-rater and cross-rater correlations among the

Discussion and conclusion

Despite two decades of research attention, the measurement of Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control construct remains unsettled (Lynam and Miller, 2004, Marcus, 2003, Piquero, 2008, Piquero and Bouffard, 2007). In this paper, we directed attention to a heretofore unexamined issue about the measurement of self-control: the relevance of the informant. Specifically, we examined how the use of maternal reports of self-control compared to adolescent reports of self-control in models testing the

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    We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their assistance in the preparation of this manuscript. The Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) was conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Early Child Care Research Network, supported by NICHD through a cooperative agreement that calls for scientific collaboration between the grantees and the NICHD staff. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development or the National Institutes of Health. (The US Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development: Phases I–IV, 1991–2008 [United States] [Computer files]. ICPSR21940-v1; ICPSR21941-v1; ICPSR21942-v1; ICPSR22361-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]).

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