| Social psychological criminology that has examined the relationship between the self and criminality has ignored aged-graded causal factors, while developmental criminology has neglected the impact the self-concept has on offending. In this study I contend that synthesizing self-concept and developmental perspectives provides a more complete and robust developmental social psychology of offending. Reflected appraisals were identified as one of the primary dimensions of self-concept. The purpose of this study was to examine the developmental changes in reflected appraisals and how they affect offending behavior over time by age and by sex. My dissertation integrates the central concepts from both perspectives to advance a developmental social psychology of crime that includes self [reflected appraisals] and age-graded explanations of offending. To complete this task, a secondary analysis of the first six waves of the National Youth Survey (NYS) was conducted. The NYS is a national probability sample of 1,725 adolescents aged 11--17 at the time of the initial interview (wave one). Theoretical models were developed as linear equations to study the predictiveness of reflected appraisals on subsequent offending by age and by sex. The research question for this study is, "who [parents, teachers, friends] is important [selective perception], for what [reflected appraisals], when [age 13,15,17]". The results indicate that reflected appraisals do add to the understanding and predictability of future offending over and above what was explained by prior offending, sex, race, and parental income. The findings also revealed significant differences in the effects of reflected appraisals across both age and sex. |
