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Moral Rules, Self-Control, and School Context: Additional Evidence on Situational Action Theory from 28 Countries

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Abstract

Objectives

The goal of the study is to address several voids in the literature investigating Situational Action Theory (SAT) by: (1) testing the role of parenting as a precursor to individual moral rules and self-control; (2) investigating the interplay between personal moral rules, self-control, and rules of school settings; and (3) exploring the generalizability of these theoretical links across western and nonwestern country clusters.

Methods

Using unique data from the third iteration of the International Self-Reported Delinquency Survey (ISRD-3) of 28 different countries, this investigation puts SAT to the test in school settings by estimating a series of two-level mixed effect negative binomial linear regression models to assess the effects of SAT-relevant individual and school-level predictors on offending.

Results

The results suggest a moderately strong performance of SAT in western and nonwestern countries. Specifically, parenting acts as a partial precursor to individual moral rules and self-control. Furthermore, some SAT-relevant predictors are equally potent as crime predictors across western and nonwestern countries. However, the effects of moral rules significantly differ across western and nonwestern country clusters. Moral rules also appear to interact significantly with self-control and a number of contextual factors in their effects on delinquency.

Conclusions

The results of the study point to the cultural generalizability of SAT but warrant further investigation as some differences in the findings across clusters exist.

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Notes

  1. SAT defines crime propensity as a tendency to perceive crime as acceptable and to “choose to break a rule of conduct.” (Wikström et al. 2012:132).

  2. It is important to note that, according to SAT, moral rules may overlap with the law but extend far beyond it. Therefore, crime is only different from other breaches of moral rules because it breaches moral rule(s) codified as laws (Wikström et al. 2012:11).

  3. The study contains 28 countries because all respondents from Denmark were found to not have school identifiers at the time.

  4. The response rate varies across different countries; the lowest response rate was recorded in Croatia (59%) and the highest—in Indonesia (close to 100%). Country samples vary in size from 647 respondents in Serbia to 6,492 in Austria, whereas the average sample size across all countries is 1,899. The data collection took place within classrooms where survey was disseminated by research assistants in the form of paper and pencil (63%) survey or in an online format (37%) (Enzmann et al. 2018) in the absence of teachers to avoid response bias. Most students took 45 min or less to complete the survey (Enzmann et al. 2018). Finally, there were missing data across several of our variables of interest varying from 1% (most common) to 6%.

  5. There was not much overlap in the missing across variables, therefore multiple imputation was used. We compared the results of models with listwise deletion and multiple imputation and found that there were no significant differences in what variables and interactions were significant across models. Therefore, for simplicity purposes we ultimately used listwise deletion. As a result, our final samples size across both country clusters is 55,419.

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Correspondence to Ekaterina V. Botchkovar.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

Pairwise correlation matrix

  1. Bold cells correspond to correlations for non-western countries. Cells that are not unbold correspond to correlations for western countries.
  2. *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001

Appendix 2

The independent and interactive effects of individual- and school-level variables associated with situational action theory on offending behavior without control variables negative binomial mixed effects regression model

  1. Boldface indicates statistically significant differences found comparing the equality of coefficients across country clusters using the test by Paternoster et al. (1998)
  2. *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001

Appendix 3

The independent and interactive effects of individual- and school-level variables associated with situational action theory on offending behavior including extra control variables negative binomial mixed effects regression model

  1. Boldface indicates statistically significant differences found comparing the equality of coefficients across country clusters using the test by Paternoster et al. (1998)
  2. *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001

Appendix 4

Country clusters

Western Cluster:

1. United States

2. U. Kingdom

3. Germany

4. France

5. Belgium

6. Netherlands

7. Austria

8. Switzerland

9. Finland

10. Italy

11. Portugal

Non-Western Country Cluster:

12. Czech

13. Estonia

14. Lithuania

15. Armenia

16. Ukraine

17. Rep. Serbia

18. Kosovo

19. Croatia

20. Bosnia

21. Macedonia

22. Slovakia

23. Venezuela

24. Indonesia

25. India

26. Cape Verde

27. Turkey

28. Poland

Juvenile delinquency:

1. “Vandalized someone’s property”

2. “Shoplifted something from a store”

3. “Broke into a store and stole something”

4. “Stole a motorbike or car”

5. “Stole bicycle”

6. “Stole something with force or a threat”

7. “Stole something from someone without force or threat”

8. “Beat someone or hurt them badly they were injured”

Self-control scale:

1. “I act on the spur the moment without stopping to think”

2. “I do whatever brings me pleasure here and now, even at the cost of some future goal”

3. “I’m more concerned with what happens to me in the short run than in the long run”

4. “I like to test myself every now and then by doing something a little risk”

5. “Sometimes I will take a risk just for the fun of it”

6. “Excitement and adventure are more important to me than security”

7. “I try to look out for myself first, even if it means making things difficult for other people”

8. “If things I do upset people, it’s their problem not mine”

9. “I will try to get the things I want even when I know it’s causing problems for other people”

Moral rules scale:

1. “Knowingly insult someone because of his/her religion, skin color, or ethnic background”

2. “Purposely damage or destroy property that does not belong to you”

3. “Illegally download films or music from the internet”

4. “steal something small like a chocolate bar from a shop”

5. “Break into a building to steal something”

6. “Hit someone with the idea of hurting that person”

7. “Using a weapon or force to get money or things from other people”

Parental attachment:

1. “My parents know where I am when I go out”

2. “My parents know what I am doing when I go out”

3. “My parents know what friends I am with when I go out”

4. “If I have been out, my parents ask me what I did, where I went, and who I spent time with”

5. “If I go out in the evening my parents tell me when I have to be back home by”

6. “If I am out and it gets late I have to call my parents and let them know”

7. “My parents check if I have done my homework”

8. “My Parents check that I only watch films/DVDs allowed for my age-group”

9. “I tell my parents who I spend time with”

10. “I tell my parents how I spend my money”

11. “I tell my parents where I am most afternoons after school”

12. “I tell my parents what I do with my free time”

School moral context discouraging delinquency (attachment):

1. “If I had to move I would miss my school”

2. “Most mornings I like to go to school”

3. “I like my school”

4, “Our classes are interesting”

School moral context encouraging delinquency:

1. “There is a lot of stealing in my school”

2, “There is a lot of fighting in my school”

3. “Many things are broken or vandalized in my school”

4. “There is a lot of drug use in my school”

Peer delinquency:

1. “I have friends who used soft or hard drugs like week, hash, ecstasy, speed, heroine, coke.”

2, “I have friends who have stolen things from a shop or department store.”

3. “I have friends who have entered a building without permission to steal something.”

4. “I Have friends who have threatened somebody with a weapon or beaten someone up, just to get their money or other things”

5. “I have friends who have beaten someone up or hurt someone badly with something like a stick or a knife”

Truancy:

“Have you ever stayed away from school for at least a whole day without a proper reason in the last 12 months”

Personal deprivation:

“If you compare yourself with other people of your age: do you have more, the same, or less money (pocket money + presents + own earnings”

Family deprivation:

“How well-off is your family, compared to others?”

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Kafafian, M., Botchkovar, E.V. & Marshall, I.H. Moral Rules, Self-Control, and School Context: Additional Evidence on Situational Action Theory from 28 Countries. J Quant Criminol 38, 861–889 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-021-09503-y

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