General Strain Theory

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General Strain Theory
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Merton

• Anomie is tied to economic status

Early strain theory focused on relationship
between low social class status and crime
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Introduction

• Children who witness and/or experience violence
  are at increased risk for subsequent violent
  behavior
• The U.S. Secret Service reports that
  threequarters of the school shooters have been
  bullied at some point in time

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Agnew (1992)

• General strain theory (GST)
• Agnew postulated that strain does not need to be
  specifically tied to economic status because it
  is actually a psychological reaction to any
  perceived negative aspect of one's social
  environment

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GST

• Hypothetically, individuals from all social
  classes could engage in criminal behavior because
  they could all experience negative emotions
  arising from strain
• This modification of Mertons theory made GST
  powerful because it could explain all types of
  offending

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Phoebe prince

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vCEs7s8T1pgUfeature
  related

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Robert Agnews General Strain Theory (1992)

• Anger has a significant impact on all measures of
  crime and deviance

ANGER
Criminal Behavior
Strain
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What are Strains?

• Strains refer to events or conditions that are
  disliked by most individuals

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Strains

• Objective
• Subjective

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Objective or Subjective?

• Objective vs subjective strains
• I lost the paper that I was working on my
  computer. I was almost done
• I got into a huge fight with my best friend and
  completely terminated our relationship
• I hate when my Dad is drunkand he is drinking
  every day

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Subjective Strains

• Influenced by a range of factors, including
  peoples personality traits, goals and values,
  and prior experiences
• Example Death of a spouse vs death of a
  spouse-abuser

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Three major types of strain

1. Failure to achieve positively valued goals
2. Loss of positive stimuli
3. Presentation of negative stimuli

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Failure to achieve positively valued goals

• Gap between expectations and actual achievements
  (not always long-term)

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Loss of positive stimuli

• Moving to a new city/school
• Parental divorce
• Death of a relative/close friend
• Break Up

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Presentation of negative stimuli

• Peer pressure
• Physical/emotional abuse
• Bullying
• Discrimination
• Labeling

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Gallup's Study (2006)

• Used mail and Web surveys with a randomly
  selected national sample of 480 teenagers aged 13
  to 17

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Problems as reported by US students
 
Drugs/smoking/alcohol 31
Peer pressure/fitting in/looks/popularity 17
Sexual issues (teen pregnancy/abortion/STDs) 14
Education 14
Ignorance/lacking of youth caring/getting involved 10
Career/employment/economy/money/future 10
Morals/attitude 8
Lack of respect/treatment from society 7
Violence/gangs 6
World politics 5
Parents 4
Negative effects on media on youth 3
War/draft/terrorism 3
Stress 2
People don't listen to us 2
Health/medical care/coverage 2
Social Security 2
Safety 1
Other 5
No opinion 2
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Problems as reported by US students
  Boys Girls
 
Drugs/smoking/alcohol 32 31
Peer pressure/fitting in/looks/popularity 14 21
Sexual issues (teen pregnancy/abortion/STDs) 11 16
Education 15 13
Ignorance/lacking of youth caring/getting involved 11 10
Career/employment/economy/money/future 11 9
Morals/attitude 10 7
Lack of respect/treatment from society 4 9
Violence/gangs 6 6
World politics 7 3
Parents 1 6
Negative effects on media on youth 3 4
War/draft/terrorism 3 2
Stress 1 3
People don't listen to us 2 2
Health/medical care/coverage 1 3
Social Security 2 1
Safety 1 1
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As reported by students enrolled in schools using
AnComms Talk About It anonymous online
reporting service.
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GST

• While GST posited that each type of strain
  ultimately lead to deviance for slightly
  different reasons, all three types were thought
  to increase the likelihood that an individual
  would experience negative emotions in proportion
  to the magnitude, duration, and recency of the
  stress

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Agnews Theory
Factors affecting disposition to delinquency
Criminal Behavior
ANGER
Strain
Constraints to delinquent behavior
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Links Between Strain and Crime

• Anger was found to incite a person to action, and
  create a desire for revenge
• Crime allows individuals to obtain revenge
  against those who have wronged them
• Crime may allow individuals to alleviate their
  negative emotions

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• Factors promoting crime

• Protective factors

• Bad temper
• Low self-control
• Previous delinquent behavior
• Delinquent friends
• Inability to cope with anger

• Good temper
• High self-control
• Shy personality
• Non-deviant behavior
• Lack of deviant friends
• Coping skills

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Coping Strategies

1. Cognitive
2. Emotional
3. Behavioral

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Cognitive coping strategies

• Minimize the importance of the strain by placing
  less importance on a particular goal
• Maximizing the positive while minimizing the
  negative outcomes of an event. This is an attempt
  to ignore the fact that there has been a negative
  event
• Accept the outcomes of the negative outcomes as
  fair

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Behavioral coping strategies

• Individuals may actively seek out positive
  stimuli (social support from friends and
  relatives)
• Try to escape negative stimuli

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Emotional coping strategies

• Relaxation methods
• Sport
• Meditation

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GST and gender

• The levels and types of strain might be
  different for girls and for boys
• Boys and girls may have different responses to
  the same strain

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• Boys

• Girls

• Peer relations
• Status/competition
• Jealousy

• Relationships with family
• Relationships with friends
• Gender discrimination

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Sex differences in emotional responses
Female Male
More likely to respond with depression and anger More likely to respond with anger
Anger is accompanied by fear, guilt, and shame Anger is followed by moral outrage
More likely to blame themselves and worry about the affects of their anger Quick to blame others and are less concerned about hurting others
Depression and guilt may lead to self-destructive behaviors (i.e. eating disorders) Moral outrage may lead to property and violent crime
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Sex differences in coping strategies

• Females employ escape and avoidance methods to
  relieve the strain
• Females have stronger relational ties that might
  help to reduce strain (social support)
• Males are lower in social control, and they
  socialize in large, hierarchical peer groups
  where they need to maintain their status
• Therefore, males are more likely to respond to
  strain with crime (Agnew 1997).

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Policy Recommendations

• Agnew proposed several different programs to
  reduce delinquency which have shown success after
  being implemented

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Policy Recommendations

• Family-based programs are designed to teach the
  members how to solve problems in a constructive
  manner, and parents are taught how to effectively
  discipline their children (Agnew, 1995)
• This will reduce the amount of negative emotions
  that result from conflict in the family and will
  decrease the amount of strain in the home

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Policy Recommendations

• School-based programs seek to improve relations
  in and between schools
• Peer based programs seek to reduce the amount of
  strain that an adolescent feels as a result of
  relationships with peers
• Relationships with peers can be negative when the
  peers are delinquent or when they are physically
  or verbally abusive toward other peers