Self-Control and the Depression–Delinquency Link

Abstract

Research has repeatedly documented the link between depression and delinquency; however, why they are associated remains less clear. Blending diverse research traditions in criminology and psychology, this study suggests that self-control may explain the depression–delinquency association. By conceptualizing self-control as a depletable resource influenced by internal factors, experiencing depressive symptoms may reduce self-control, which in turn increases delinquency. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) lend support for this proposition and suggest that self-control is an important explanatory factor in the depression–delinquency relationship. Specifically, the data show that depression is no longer associated with delinquency when self-control is taken into account and self-control explains more of the association than previous explanations combined.

Acknowledgments

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due to Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

The author thanks Wayne Osgood, Michael Massoglia, Claire Altman, Sonja Siennick, Eric Silver, Jeremy Staff, and Matthew VanEseltine for their helpful comments on previous drafts.

Notes

¹Vaske and Gehring (2010) tested four potential mechanisms for the depression–delinquency relationship including impulsivity; however, they did not find support for it.

²Pratt and Cullen's (2000) meta-analysis was based on 21 studies obtained from electronic database searches. These studies represented all published empirical analyses that included self-control at the time. Following Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), only studies treating self-control as a unitary construct were included (N = 7 excluded). The average effect size exceeded 0.20, net of controls for social learning theory and methodological variations across studies.

³This attrition rate of 12% does not include the 12th graders who were not surveyed in Wave II because the Add Health investigators chose not to track them down.

⁴Child maltreatment questions were asked retrospectively in Wave III, thus the higher number of missing is due to sample attrition.

⁵Depressive symptom items in the Add Health study differ slightly from CESD-10 items primarily due to shifts from first to second person (i.e., from “I” to “you”).

⁶Perrone and colleagues' (2004) and Beaver's (2008) measure includes an additional item which taps self-centeredness. This indicator was not included in the present analysis because it did not load with the other indicators in a factor analysis.

N = 11,567.

^a Standardized measure.

N = 11,567; *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Reference groups: females, non-Whites, and both biological parents.

N = 11,567; *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Reference groups: females, non-Whites, and both biological parents.

p < .05 in boldface.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brianna Remster

BRIANNA REMSTER is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Villanova University. Her research interests include crime and deviance over the life course and the social consequences of incarceration. She is currently examining the relationship between adolescent volunteering and subsequent criminal behavior (with Michael Massoglia and Christopher Uggen).