Advisor(s)

Christopher Henrich

Committee Member(s)

Kristi Guest
Lindsay Leban
Sylvie Mrug
Tara Warner

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

1-27-2026

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

School

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Adolescent delinquency is a key predictor of later criminal behaviors and is associated with negative outcomes across education, employment, and health. Despite extensive research, gaps remain regarding the interplay of individual- and context-level factors in the development of delinquency, as well as the reliance on cross-sectional or retrospective designs. Guided by a social-ecological framework, the present dissertation examines how family, school, and neighborhood contexts interact with individual behaviors to shape pathways toward delinquency and adult criminality across childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. The first study investigated the cascading effects of paternal engagement, parental aggravation, and early child behavior problems in the emergence of delinquency from ages 3 to 15. Findings indicated that early child behavior problems, rather than father-related factors, were the most robust predictors of later delinquency, highlighting the stability of externalizing tendencies and the enduring influence of early individual characteristics. The second study examined the relationship between home, school, and neighborhood violence exposure to later delinquency through aggressive fantasies, further considering the moderating role of school connectedness in those relationships from ages 11 to 18. Results suggested that school connectedness was not uniformly protective. At high levels of school connectedness, home violence exposure was associated with lower delinquency, whereas neighborhood and school violence exposure showed more limited moderation effects. Aggressive fantasies predicted delinquency in early adolescence but not later, indicating developmental specificity in cognitive processes. The third study focused on neighborhood disadvantage, collective efficacy, adolescent violence exposure, delinquency, and perceived disorder in adolescence as predictors of adult criminal behaviors. While no direct or interactive effects of structural neighborhood factors were observed, neighborhood disadvantage was indirectly related to non-violent offending via perceived neighborhood disorder, underscoring the importance of subjective environmental perceptions. Collectively, these studies highlight the transactional nature of risk and protective factors across multiple ecological systems. Early child behavior, contextual violence, school connectedness, and neighborhood perceptions each contribute in developmentally contingent ways to delinquency and criminality. The findings underscore the need for multi-level, context-sensitive interventions that consider individual, family, school, and community influences across critical developmental periods.

Keywords

criminal behavior;developmental;home context;neighborhood context;school context;social-ecological framework

ProQuest Publication Number

32285469

ISBN

9798273381087

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