Doctoral Disssertation Research: Delinquency and Depression: Gendered Reactions to Stress

这篇论文的改进研究探讨了导致青少年犯罪和青少年抑郁症的男性和女性青少年的过程。 关于性别和犯罪的研究一致表明，男性和女性以不同的方式表达越轨行为。虽然男性比女性更有可能从事违法行为，但女性比男性更有可能患抑郁症。这使得研究人员提出：（1）青少年犯罪和抑郁症是一个类似过程的结果，（2）导致这些结果的过程受到性别的影响，导致不同形式的越轨行为-青少年犯罪与抑郁症-对男性和女性来说。 为了解释这些差异，本研究将借鉴犯罪学和心理健康研究，探讨宏观层面的社会变化的男性和女性的角色的可能性，在定义持续的压力，包括婚姻冲突，角色超载，并使用权力主张纪律-在家庭中发挥重要作用。这种持续的压力，在家庭中，反过来，可能会影响父母的能力，提高良好的调整，不越轨的青少年。这项研究的一个中心重点将是性别意识形态如何影响这一过程，导致不同形式的越轨行为的男性和女性青年谁是暴露在持续的家庭压力。在对导致青少年犯罪和抑郁症的过程作出解释之后，该项目将提出具体的假设，并利用全国青年抽样的数据对这些假设进行检验。将使用LISREL 8中协方差结构分析的最大似然法分别估计男性和女性的拟定模型。还将使用LISREL的跨群体选项同时对男性和女性的这些模型进行估计。跨人群模型允许评估跨性别因果路径的相对程度。具体来说，交叉人口模型允许测试性别之间的相互作用和过程，导致犯罪和抑郁症的限制特定参数是不变的群体。 除了通过研究取得的科学成果外，该奖项还将在物质上帮助一位非常有前途的学生完成博士研究。论文因此，它有助于全面培养下一代社会科学家。

This Dissertation Improvement research examines the process leading to both juvenile delinquency and adolescent depression among male and female adolescents. Research on gender and delinquency consistently shows that males and females express deviance in different ways. While males are much more likely than females to engage in law-violating behaviors, females are more likely than males to suffer depression. This has led researchers to propose that: (1) delinquency and depression are the outcomes of a similar process, and (2) the process leading to these outcomes is acted upon by gender in ways that result in different forms of deviance - delinquency versus depression - for males and for females. To develop an explanation of these differences, this research will draw on both criminological and mental health research to explore the possibility that macro-level social changes in the roles of men and women play an important part in defining persistent stress - including marital conflict, role overload, and the use of power-assertive discipline - within families. This persistent stress within families, in turn, may influence the ability of parents to raise well-adjusted, nondeviant adolescents. A central focus of this research will be on how gender ideologies influence this process to result in different forms of deviance for male and female youth who are exposed to persistent familial stress. After developing an explanation of the process leading to both delinquency and depression, the project will derive specific hypotheses and test them using data from a national sample of youth. The proposed models will be estimated separately for males and for females using the maximum likelihood procedures for covariance structure analysis in LISREL 8. These models will also be estimated simultaneously for males and females using the cross-groups option of LISREL. Cross-population models allow for the assessment of the relative magnitudes of causal paths across gender. Specifically, cross-population model s allow for tests of interactions between gender and the processes leading to delinquency and depression by constraining particular parameters to be invariant across groups. In addition to the scientific gains to be achieved by the research, this award will materially assist a highly promising student in completing research for the Ph.D. dissertation. Thus it contributes to the thorough training of the next generation of social scientists.