About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

30 Criminology 475 (1992)
An Empirical Test of General Strain Theory

handle is hein.journals/crim30 and id is 489 raw text is: AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF GENERAL STRAIN THEORY* ROBERT AGNEW Emory University HELENE RASKIN WHITE Rutgers University This paper tests Agnew's (1992) general strain theory (GST) of crime and delinquency. GST argues that strain occurs when others (1) prevent or threaten to prevent you from achieving positively valued goals, (2) remove or threaten to remove positively valued stimuli that you possess, or (3) present or threaten to present you with noxious or negatively valued stimuli. The impact of such strain on delinquency is said to be condi- tioned by several variables, such as association with delinquent peers and self-efficacy. Data from a sample of 1,380 New Jersey adolescents provide qualified support for the theory; strain measures of the type described above have a relatively substantial effect on delinquency and drug use. Further, the effect of these strain measures is conditioned by delinquent peers and self-efficacy, as predicted by GST. The classic strain theories of Merton (1938), Cohen (1955), and Cloward and Ohlin (1960) dominated the research on delinquency and drug use during the 1960s (Bernard, 1984; Cole, 1975). These theories came under heavy attack during the 1970s, however, and their influence on empirical research is now quite limited. Models of delinquency and drug use are instead domi- nated by social control and differential association/social learning theory, and many recent models entirely ignore strain variables or assign them a small role (e.g., Elliott et al., 1985; Johnson, 1979; Massey and Krohn, 1986; Thornberry, 1987). While strain theories were criticized on a number of points, the primary criticism was that the variables derived from them were unrelated or only weakly related to delinquency and drug use (Agnew, 1991b; Hirschi, 1969; Jensen, 1986; Kornhauser, 1978; Liska, 197 1; also see Bernard, 1984; Farnworth and Leiber, 1989). Several revisions in classic strain theory have been developed in response to these criticisms, although none has seri- ously challenged the dominance of control and differential association theory (Agnew, 1985; Bernard, 1987; Elliott et al., 1979, 1985; Greenberg, 1977). * We would like to thank Allan Horwitz and Linda Koenig for their comments. Preparation of this paper was supported in part by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA-03395) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (AA-05823). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1991 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology in San Francisco. CRIMINOLOGY VOLUME 30 NUMBER 4 1992

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most