https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7219-1542
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Abstract
The objective of this study was to determine whether sex moderates the indirect effect of depression on delinquency via cognitive impulsivity and if so, whether the effect is stronger in girls than in boys. Participants for this study were 845 (406 boys, 439 girls) middle school students who completed surveys annually between the sixth and eighth grades. A moderated mediation analysis revealed that the depression → cognitive impulsivity → delinquency pathway was moderated by sex, whereas the direct effect of depression on delinquency was not. Simple mediation analyses performed on male and female youth separately revealed that the pathway running from depression to cognitive impulsivity to delinquency was significant only in girls. The results of this study demonstrate how mediation and moderation can be used to integrate concepts from different theories, which in the current case included Beck’s cognitive theory of depression and gendered pathways perspective from feminist criminology.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 The 32 variables included in these analyses were age, sex, race, family structure, domicile, parental knowledge for all three waves, parental support for all three waves, bullying victimization for all three waves, bullying perpetration for all three waves, peer delinquency for all three waves, participant delinquency for all three waves, depression for all three waves, cognitive insensitivity for all three waves, and cognitive impulsivity for all three waves.
2 The 5 cohorts were dummy-coded into four variables (Cohort 1 vs. all other cohorts, Cohort 2 vs. all other cohorts, Cohort 3 vs. all other cohorts, and Cohort 4 vs. all other cohorts) and included in the regression analyses. Because the model that excluded the four cohort dummy-coded variables displayed substantially better fit than the model that included the four cohort dummy-coded variables, with the two models producing virtually identical results otherwise, only the findings for the model without the cohort dummy-coded variables are reported in this paper.
3 The zero-order correlations between Depression-1 and Delinquency-3 were significant in boys (r = .18, p < .05) as well as in girls (r = .15, p < .05), although they were half the size of the correlations between Depression-1 and Delinquency-1 in boys (r = .36, p < .001) and girls (r = .34, p < .001). Consequently, when cognitive impulsivity was removed from the analysis, the coefficient between Depression-1 and Delinquency-3 was small and non-significant in both boys (Z = -0.05, p = .96, β = -.00) and girls (Z = 0.55, p = .58, β = .03). These results suggest that it was less a matter of cognitive impulsivity explaining away the relationship between depression and delinquency, as it was cognitive impulsivity providing a bridge between depression and delinquency, although only in girls.
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Notes on contributors
Glenn D. Walters
Glenn D. Walters, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Kutztown University in Kutztown, Pennsylvania where he teaches classes in criminology, corrections, and drugs and crime. Prior to this, he worked 27 years as a clinical psychologist in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. His current research interests include criminal thinking, mediation analysis, and the development of an integrated theory of offending behavior. Dr. Walters’ research has appeared in Criminology, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and Law and Human Behavior.
Jonathan Kremser
Jonathan Kremser, Ph.D. is professor and chair of criminal justice at Kutztown University. His research interests include school safety, school crime, and security. He teaches courses in security management, loss prevention & asset protection, and criminology. He received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University and publishes widely in the area of school violence and security.
Lindsey Runell
Lindsey L. Runell, J.D., Ph.D. is an associate professor of criminal justice at Kutztown University, where she teaches courses in criminal justice, criminal law, evidence, and policy, punishment, and society. She holds a Ph.D. in criminal justice from Rutgers University and a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School. Dr. Runell’s scholarly research has appeared in the International Journal of Bullying Prevention, Aggressive Behavior, Journal of Social Work, and The Prison Journal, among others.