Parental attitude toward deviance as a predictor of delinquency: Making the connection via perception and cognition

Abstract

This study tested a core postulate of social cognitive theory: i.e., that perception precedes cognition in the development of behavior. Using data from four of the first five waves of the 1725-member (918 males, 807 females) National Youth Survey (NYS), youth perception of parental attitude toward deviance and youth attitude toward deviance at Waves 2 and 3 were tested as possible mediators of the relationship between Wave 1 parental attitude toward deviance and self-reported delinquency at Wave 5. The target chain was both significant and significantly stronger than the reverse chain and there was no evidence that age, race, or sex moderated this mediated relationship. These results support the presence of a chaining process in which proximal social, perceptual, and cognitive events link to distal behavioral outcomes like delinquency.