Citation

Bursik RJ, Baba Y. Soc. Sci. Res. 1986; 15(1): 71-81.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1986, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0049-089X(86)90004-9

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Sociological models of individual deterrence have generally assumed that there is a single decision-making strategy related to criminal behavior that may be mediated by certain social contexts. In this paper we argue that this process is also conditional on the psychological characteristics of the individual. Based on a panel study of early adolescence, evidence is presented that the effects of the severity of punishment and the perceptions of the moral "wrongness" of an act are contingent on the self-esteem of the individual. A method is proposed that enables a researcher to examine sources of individual variation within traditional, nonexperimental survey data sets.