Abstract
To investigate the link between attachment to parents and delinquency, and the potential moderating effects of age and sex, 74 published and unpublished manuscripts (N = 55,537 participants) were subjected to a multilevel meta-analysis. A mean small to moderate effect size was found (r = 0.18). Poor attachment to parents was significantly linked to delinquency in boys and girls. Stronger effect sizes were found for attachment to mothers than attachment to fathers. In addition, stronger effect sizes were found if the child and the parent had the same sex compared to cross-sex pairs of children and parents. Age of the participants moderated the link between attachment and delinquency: larger effect sizes were found in younger than in older participants. It can be concluded that attachment is associated with juvenile delinquency. Attachment could therefore be a target for intervention to reduce or prevent future delinquent behavior in juveniles.
Highlights
To investigate the link between attachment to parents and delinquency, and the potential moderating effects of age and sex, 74 published and unpublished manuscripts (N0 55,537 participants) were subjected to a multilevel metaanalysis
The present meta-analytic study summarizes and integrates previous findings on the link between attachment and delinquency, and examines factors that could have a moderating effect on this association, including age and sex. Results of this meta-analysis confirm previous findings in that poor attachment to parents is associated with more delinquent behavior
According to the criteria of Cohen (1988) for small, moderate and large effect sizes, the strength of the association between attachment and delinquency should be considered small to moderate (r00.18). This finding is relatively similar for studies examining the association between attachment and delinquency from the perspective of control theory and attachment theory
Summary
To investigate the link between attachment to parents and delinquency, and the potential moderating effects of age and sex, 74 published and unpublished manuscripts (N0 55,537 participants) were subjected to a multilevel metaanalysis. Age of the participants moderated the link between attachment and delinquency: larger effect sizes were found in younger than in older participants. Many empirical studies found evidence suggesting that poor attachment to parents increases the risk of delinquent behavior, a systematic review of the link between attachment and delinquency has not been conducted yet. According to Hirschi, delinquency will be low in families with strong affective ties, because juveniles who are strongly attached to their parents are more likely to care about the normative expectations of their parents, which protects against delinquent impulses. The quality of attachment functions as an indirect parental control: conventional behavior of the child is achieved as a by-product of strong childparent attachments (Hirschi 1969). Delinquent behavior, will increase if the bond to the parent is weak
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