Self-control in Cross-national Perspective: an Empirical Assessment of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s General Theory within and across 25 National Settings*

While Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) general theory of crime has generated extensive research over the past decade, three issues concerning its cross-national applicability remain underresearched. First, research has paid inadequate attention to the reliability and validity of selfcontrol measures in non-Western cultures. Second, research has yet to examine the relationship between parenting and self-control in non-Western cultures. Third, research has yet to test Gottfredson and Hirschi’s assertion that cross-national crime differentials are reducible to aggregate differences in self-control. The present study addresses each of these issues using a six-item self-control scale and two separate crime measures among young-adult respondents from 25 Western and non-Western national settings. Results provide mixed support for the general theory’s predictions. On one hand, results suggest that (1) the six-item self-control scale is generally reliable within both Western and non-Western national settings, (2) the scale generally serves as a valid predictor of crime within setting, (3) an eight-item parental neglect scale predicts self-control within each national setting, and (4) national settings with high levels of average parental neglect demonstrate significantly lower levels of average self-control. On the other hand, national settings with higher levels of average self-reported crime tend do not demonstrate significantly lower levels of average self-control. Overall, results provide strong support for self-control theory within a variety of disparate national settings but call into question the ability of self-control theory to explain cross-national crime differentials. ID24B, 17-Feb-06 Page 1 SELF-CONTROL IN CROSS-NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF GOTTFREDSON AND HIRSCHI’S GENERAL THEORY WITHIN AND ACROSS 25 NATIONAL SETTINGS Although a wealth of existing research provides substantial support for the core assertions of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) general theory of crime using U.S. and Western samples, three questions remain about the cross-cultural applicability of the general theory. First, to what degree can self-control be measured reliably outside Western settings and to what degree do such measures predict crime accurately outside Western settings? Second, to what degree does parenting predict self-control outside Western settings? Third, are cross-national crime differentials reducible to aggregate differences in self-control and are such differences, in turn, reducible to aggregate differences in parenting? The present study assesses each of the above issues using self-report data from young adult respondents in 25 Western and non-Western cultures. We begin by providing a brief overview of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s major predictions, including their assertions about the nature of the self-control concept, the relationship between self-control and crime, and the ability of self-control to explain cross-national variation in crime. We next review the existing empirical literature concerning the reliability of self-control measures in U.S. samples, the validity of self-control as a correlate of criminal behavior in U.S. samples, and the findings of the limited research concerning the cross-cultural reliability and validity of self-control measures. Finally, we use data from the International Dating Violence Study (IDVS) (Straus and Members of the International Dating Violence Research Consortium, 2004) to assess the reliability and validity of a new self-control scale within each of our 25 national settings as well as the relationships among aggregate measures of parenting, self-control, and crime across all 25 national settings. ID24B, 17-Feb-06 Page 2 THE MAJOR PREDICTIONS OF THE GENERAL THEORY Like other control theories (e.g., Hirschi, 1969), Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory begins with the fundamental premise that its dependent variable should not be crime, per se, but that it should instead be conformity. For these theorists, acts of force and fraud are often the most expedient means by which to achieve immediate material gratification. Similarly, “analogous” behaviors like promiscuous sex and the use of chemical substances are often the most expedient means by which to achieve immediate visceral gratification. For Gottfredson and Hirschi, the tendency to engage in such behaviors reflects the universal human pursuit of selfinterest and, therefore, needs no special explanation. Instead, these theorists suggest that the major task of criminologists should be seeking the causes of conformity to laws and norms that limit the immediate pursuit of gratification. According to Gottfredson and Hirschi, the major source of conformity is an individual trait that they call self-control. According to these theorists, those with low self-control tend to possess a number of relatively stable constitutional characteristics that prevent them from forgoing the pleasure of the immediate moment in the interest of long-term benefit. Such individuals, for example, lack “persistence in the course of action” such that they avoid difficult tasks, are drawn to risky or exciting behavior, and prefer physical tasks that put them at risk for injury over mental tasks that involve cognitive concentration (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990:89). Likewise, such individuals tend to have a bad temper and to be “insensitive to the suffering” that others experience (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990:89-90; see also Grasmick et al., 1993). ID24B, 17-Feb-06 Page 3 Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) further contend that interpersonal differences in selfcontrol remain relatively stable across the majority of the life-course, even as a given individual’s criminal behavior increases in the teenage years and declines thereafter. However, given their adamant criticism of research suggesting meaningful genetic differences in the predisposition for self-control (e.g., Mednick et al., 1984), these theorists situate the origin of self-control in early childhood socialization. In particular, they suggest that children develop self-control to the degree that their parents set clear rules, monitor their children’s behavior, recognize rule-violations, and sanction such violations consistently within the first decade of their child’s life (see also Larzelere and patterson 1990; Patterson and Dishion 1985). While Gottfredson and Hirschi acknowledge cross-cultural variation in crime rates, they dispute the notion that such variation reflects differences in culturally-defined conceptions of law, differences in the fundamental processes that produce crime, or differences in structural variables like poverty (e.g., Neapolitan, 1999). Rather, they state that “cultural variability is not important in the causation of crime” and argue that socialization in early childhood promotes or prevents the development of self-control equally across cultural context (1990:174-175, italics in original??). By extension, their general theory suggests that cross-cultural differences in aggregate crime reflect (1) cross-cultural differences in parenting practices; (2) resulting differences in average levels of self-control; and (3) differential opportunity afforded by such factors as variance in aggregate wealth. EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENTS OF THE GENERAL THEORY THE RELIABILITY OF SELF-CONTROL MEASURES ID24B, 17-Feb-06 Page 4 One of the most researched facets of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s theory involves the degree to which measures derived from the theory are reliably correlated with one another. Grasmick et al. provide seminal research in this area using a community sample of 395 adults from Oklahoma City to probe six different dimensions of self-control derived from Gottfredson and Hirschi’s theory: (1) impulsivity; (2) a preference for simple tasks; (3) risk-seeking; (4) physicality; (5) self-centeredness; and (6) a bad temper. Of 24 items that they proposed to tap the self-control concept, principle components analysis suggested that 23 clung together to form a reliable and unidimensional self-control scale (α=.81). Further research employed modified versions of the same scale and replicated this finding with other U.S. samples of adults (e.g., Arneklev et al., 1993), college students (e.g., Arneklev et al., 1999), and incarcerated offenders (e.g., Longshore, 1998; Longshore and Turner, 1998; Longshore et al., 1996; Piquero and Rosay, 1998). Although the Grasmick et al. (1993) self-control scale is perhaps the most commonly used, other measures of self-control have also been devised and a number of studies bear on their reliability among U.S. samples. Burton et al. (1999), for example, employed a 12-item scale tapping the impulsivity, temper, physicality, and risk-seeking components of the self-control concept and found an α-coefficient of .64 (see also, Burton et al., 1998). Similarly, Evans et al., (1997) employed an 11-item scale tapping all but the simple task component of self-control and