Love Deprivation, Wechsler Performance > Verbal Discrepancy, and Violent Delinquency

Abstract

This study explored the relationship among love deprivation, Performance > Verbal discrepancy, and violent crime in a sample of juvenile probationers. Love deprivation and P > V discrepancy was significantly related to violent delinquency after adjusting for the effects of both race and social class, two variables often closely associated with violent delinquency. Also, love deprivation was strongly related to P > V discrepancy. We speculated that high performance IQ scores relative to verbal scores are a function of a lack of disruption in the short-term memory mechanisms of high P > V subjects, that this nondisruption is a function of hyporeactive autonomic nervous systems, and that this hyporeactivity could itself be a function of early love deprivation.