The interplay of emotion, cognitive, and authority factors in the legal socialization model

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This project examines why some adolescents are more likely to break rules than others. Specifically, it tests an expanded version of legal socialization theory that incorporates emotion to help us better understand why some teenagers misuse drugs, bully their peers, act violently, and/or steal. Research about legal socialization theory finds that people's perceptions of fairness and their reasoning about legal matters shape their trust of authorities (police, parents, teachers) and their attitudes, which, in turn, influence their rule-breaking behaviors. Research, however, has yet to examine how emotions like shame, guilt, anger, and fear might fit into the legal socialization model of rule-breaking behavior. The present study proposes to address the role that such emotions may play in the legal socialization process to either promote or inhibit rule-breaking behavior. In particular, it seeks to collect longitudinal data from a new cohort of middle school adolescents and from an older sample of emerging adults who have previously been interviewed. The study will first examine how emotions change throughout adolescence and emerging adulthood. Second, it will examine how these emotions predict later rule-breaking behavior. Third, it will compare the emotions, reasoning, and attitudes of: (a) abstainers who never engaged in rule-breaking behavior during adolescence; (b) adolescence-limited desisters, who only engaged in rule-breaking behavior during adolescence; and (c) life course rule-violators who continue to break rules in emerging adulthood. Fourth, our study will investigate the degree to which legal reasoning, attitudes, and trust in authorities affect rule-breaking behavior via their effects on various emotions in adolescence and in emerging adulthood. Ultimately, the findings will provide important information for school-based intervention design and policies aimed at reducing behaviors like bullying and substance misuse by addressing both the cognitions and the emotions that promote or inhibit such behaviors.