Self-Control, Child Effects, and Informal Social Control: A Direct Test of the Primacy of Sociogenic Factors

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It is often assumed that self-control and informal social control are compatible with their direct influence on adolescent misconduct. It is also frequently assumed that informal social control theory can account for ontogenetic influences, like self-control, and sociogenic influences in a manner consistent with both perspectives. And finally it is assumed that processes of informal social control have been shown to have the strongest effect on adolescent delinquency while at the same time mediating ontogenetic influences like self-control. These misconceptions can be traced to the original presentation of informal social control theory. This paper represents the first step of a direct re-examination of the role of informal social control in the genesis of adolescent delinquency as presented in Sampson and Laub's (1995) Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points through Life. The results show that the importance (i.e., primacy and mediating power) of informal social control in explaining the emergence of adolescent delinquency was overstated in Crime in the Making.