Learning and Control Theories

Teens are perceived to be incapable of controlling themselves and with that parents take upon themselves and try to be controllers of all their decision. This becomes a problem because they are not able to interact with their peers who share issues which in turn leads to fixing them.

Brauer R.J., & Coster D.S. (2015). Social Relationships and Delinquency: Revisiting Parent

and Peer Influence During Adolescence. Youth & Society, 47(3), 374-394. DOI: 10.1177/0044118X12467655

Peers are depicted as a risk factor in the criminology literature. This primarily is because researchers assume that parents embrace conventional values. Peers are portrayed as modelling non-conventional values and behaviours this can be caused by them hanging out with peers who are considered delinquency. They ask whether adolescents feel closer to their non-conventional peers than their non-conventional parents. According to control theories, close relationships/attachments with others, including parents and peers, curb delinquency because youths do not want to jeopardize their relationships by engaging in oversight.

Social learning theory is best equipped to explain peer influence, but the developmental perspective appears to be more applicable for parent influence, they say. The research supports the claim that attachments to parents inhibit delinquency, but the impact of peer attachments is weak or nonexistent. The conclusion could be that parents are a more salient source of influence than peers and that peers are a less important source of delinquency for youths.

Franken A., Moffitt T.E., Steglich C.E.G., Dijkstra J.K., Harakeh Z., & Vollebergh W.A.M.

(, 2016). The role of self-control and early adolescents’ friendships in the development of externalizing behaviour: The snare study. J Youth Adolescence, 45. 1800-1811. DOI 10.1007/s10964-015-0287-z.

Their friends’ externalizing behaviour influences adolescents’ development of externalizing behaviours. Self-control is associated with the result of antisocial behaviour, alcohol use, and tobacco use. Several studies have investigated a potential moderating effect of self-control on the tendency to adapt friends’ behaviour. This study aimed to overcome limitations by using a data set of adolescents’ social networks measured repeatedly over time. It also modelled the co-evolution of the network (friendship) and the behaviour (externalizing behaviour) over time using stochastic actor-based modelling. The findings were based on data from adolescents’ reports of their own and of their peers’ action, which is likely to be biased. This study aimed to test the role of self-control in the spread of externalizing behaviour during early adolescence. Early adolescents become increasingly engaged in externalizing behaviours such as antisocial behaviour, alcohol use, and tobacco use. This sudden increase of Externalizing behaviour has been explained by the dual-taxonomy model (Moffitt 1993). According to this model, adolescents are motivated to overcome the stressful experience of the ”maturity gap”.

Mason W.A., & Windle M. (2002). Gender, self-control, and informal social control in

adolescence a test of three models of the continuity of delinquent behaviour. Youth & Society, 33. 479-514.

Far less consensus exists regarding how to explain the continuity of delinquent and criminal behaviour. We test three alternative models of delinquency using longitudinal data from middle adolescents. One model posits that the relationship between low self-control and adolescent delinquency is direct and unmediated. Low self-control is also hypothesized to have direct effects on functioning in other domains of life, such as school and family. The fit of one model is consistent with Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime.

According to the general theory of crime, the primary cause of delinquent behaviour is low self-control. Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) asserted that people who lack self-control would tend to be impulsive, insensitive, physical (as opposed to mental), risk-taking, short-sighted, and nonverbal. According to the general theory, any relationship between social consequences and subsequent deviance is spurious and will disappear once controls for prior levels of criminal propensity are introduced. We compare nested models derived from three prominent criminological theories using structural equation modelling procedures.

Pratt T.C., Turner M.G., & Piquero A.R. (2004). Parental socialization and community

context: A longitudinal analysis of the structural sources of low self-control. Journal Of Research In Crime And Delinquency, 41. 219-243.

DOI: 10.1177/0022427803260270.

A lengthy roster of studies has emerged, examining the relationship between self-control and crime/deviance. Some studies have called into question certain propositions contained in theory regarding the predictors of white-collar crime. Nevertheless, empirical support for an inverse relationship between levels of self-control and measures of crime and deviance has been reasonably consistent. One hypothesis emanating from Gottfredson’s and Hirschi’s (1990) theory that is only beginning to be the subject of empirical scrutiny involves the role of parenting in the development of Self-control. One possible reason for this curious absence of empirical attention could be that parental socialization may be a distal cause of criminal behaviour. The general theory of crime argues that once levels of self-control are developed, social control effects should play no role in the genesis of criminal behaviour. Gottfredson and Hirschi contend that the principal cause of self-control is ineffective child-rearing. We conclude that the relationship between parental socialization and development. Of self-control may be more complicated than parenting alone.

Ward J.T., Boman J.H., & Jones S. (2015). Hirschi’s redefined self-control: assessing the

implications of the merger between social and self-control theories. Crime & Delinquency, 61(9), 1206-1233. DOI: 10.1177/0011128712466939.

Some researchers have made an intriguing contribution to the control literature by merging two control theories. A new measure of redefined self-control advances a further action of self-control and provides an empirical test of key hypotheses. They have also claimed that the differences in social control are stable and that social management and self-control are the same things. They have also indicated that all potential costs, not just long-term costs, are essential to self-control. Redefined, self-control becomes the tendency to consider the full range of potential costs of a particular act. This may explain why individuals refrain from crime while simultaneously solving several of the key criticisms of the general theory of crime. Disentangling the exact relationship between social control, redefined self-control is of critical import. Although redefined self-control and social bonds are not the same things, they are moderately correlated.

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