Social Control Versus Social Learning: Self-Efficacy for Future Academic Success and Peer Delinquency as Mediators of the Parental Support–Delinquency Relationship

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether low self-efficacy for future academic success and peer delinquency mediated the relationship between weak parental support and delinquency, and if so, establish the order of mediation. Members of the Flint (Michigan) Adolescent Study ( N = 850) served as participants in this study, which compared a pathway based on social control principles (weak parental support → low self-efficacy → peer delinquency → participant delinquency) with a pathway based on social learning principles (weak parental support → peer delinquency → low self-efficacy → delinquency). Path analysis was conducted and revealed that the social control pathway was significant, the social learning pathway was nonsignificant, and the difference between the two pathways was significant. These results suggest that low parental support facilitates delinquency, in part, by lowering self-efficacy for future academic success, a component of the larger construct of self-efficacy for conventional behavior, which, in turn, promotes delinquent peer associations. From a theoretical perspective, these results are more consistent with a social control interpretation of the parental support–delinquency relationship than with a social learning interpretation, although aspects of social learning theory were also supported by the results of this study.

From Context to Perception to Behavior: Predicting Delinquency With the Parental Support-Perceived Parental Competence Cross-Lag

“…By internalizing the external social context, in this case, parental support, and acting on this symbolized interpretation of the social environment, the child, in effect, reduced their own chances of engaging in future delinquent behavior. These results are consistent with prior studies showing that internalized processes like cognitive distortions (de Vries et al, 2016), moral disengagement (Ishoy, 2017), and weak academic selfefficacy (Walters, 2019) are capable of mediating the parental support-delinquency relationship. More recently, Walters et al (2022) discovered that perceived parental competence suppressed future delinquency by increasing cognitive control and moral cognition.…”

“…Second, neither study tested the total indirect effect with bootstrapped confidence intervals, the current standard for research in mediation analysis (Hayes, 2022). In a pair of studies that used at least three waves of data and tested the total indirect effect with bootstrapped confidence intervals, low self-efficacy for academic success/peer delinquency (Walters, 2019) and peer delinquency/gang affiliation (Walters, 2020b) were found to mediate the relationship between low parental support and child delinquency.…”

Exploring the Relationship between Despotic Leadership and Job Satisfaction: The Role of Self Efficacy and Leader–Member Exchange

“…Social learning theory is an important scheme for exploring the process of human cognition formation [ 47 ]. According to this theory, driven by goals, individuals will form relevant expectations and action plans in combination with the evaluation of themselves and the environment, and then constantly reflect on themselves in the process of action to form the evaluation of self-efficacy, which will ultimately affect their expectations of themselves and their behavior.…”

“…First, self-efficacy refers to an individual’s speculation and judgment on whether they can complete a certain behavior [ 50 ]. According to social learning theory, people’s sense of self-efficacy often comes from their past social experiences [ 47 ]. For example, independently completing a certain task and achieving success can bring people a satisfactory experience and arouse their ambition to continuously participate and continuously improve this task [ 50 ].…”

Protecting our youth: Advocating for family services in the juvenile justice system

“…One study found that 70.5% of youth were influenced by peer pressure to commit a delinquent act (Lobos, 2020). Research has also found that boys are often more sensitive to negative peer effects than girls (Augustyn & McGloin, 2013; Piquero et al, 2005; Walters, 2019), while girls tend to be impacted more by family influences, both positive and negative, as compared to boys (Silverman & Caldwell, 2005; Walters, 2013; Walters, 2019). While evaluating parental control/support and peer deviance as predictors of participant delinquency, Bowman and colleagues (2007) discovered that parental control and support predicted delinquency in girls but not boys and peer deviance predicted delinquency in boys but not girls.…”