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

本论文的改进研究考察了在男女青少年中导致青少年犯罪和青少年抑郁的过程。对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有抑郁症。这导致研究人员提出：(1)犯罪和抑郁是相似过程的结果，(2)导致这些结果的过程由性别以不同的方式作用，导致不同形式的越轨行为--对男性和女性来说--犯罪和抑郁。为了解释这些差异，这项研究将利用犯罪学和心理健康研究来探索宏观社会层面上的男性和女性角色变化在定义家庭内持续压力--包括婚姻冲突、角色过载和权力自信纪律的使用--方面发挥重要作用的可能性。家庭内部的这种持续的压力，反过来可能会影响父母养育适应良好、没有偏差的青少年的能力。这项研究的中心重点将是性别意识形态如何影响这一过程，从而导致承受持续家庭压力的男性和女性青年不同形式的越轨行为。在对导致犯罪和抑郁的过程做出解释后，该项目将得出具体的假设，并使用全国青年样本的数据对其进行检验。建议的模型将使用LISREL 8中用于协方差结构分析的最大似然程序分别估计男性和女性。这些模型也将使用LISREL的跨组选项同时估计男性和女性。跨人口模型允许评估跨性别的因果路径的相对程度。具体地说，跨群体模型S通过限制特定参数在不同群体之间保持不变，允许测试性别与导致犯罪和抑郁的过程之间的交互作用。除了这项研究将获得的科学成果外，这一奖项还将对一位非常有前途的学生完成博士论文的研究提供实质性的帮助。从而有助于对下一代社会科学家的深入培训。

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.