Reconsidering Labels and Primary Deviance

Abstract

Objective: We assess Matsueda’s reflected appraisals model of delinquency across groups of previously delinquent and nondelinquent adolescents. We hypothesize that the reflected appraisals process, which entails incorporating informal appraisals by significant others into self-identities, differs across delinquent and nondelinquent adolescents. Method: We estimate cross-group models of the reflected appraisals process among delinquent and nondelinquent adolescents using the data (National Youth Survey) and methodology (structural equation modeling) from Matsueda’s original research. Results: The informal labeling and identity processes articulated in the reflected appraisals model better explain delinquency continuity than delinquency onset. Notable differences across previously delinquent and nondelinquent groups are found with respect to the influence of parental appraisals on reflected appraisals and with respect to the influence of race on parental and reflected appraisals. Conclusions: Informal labeling predicts both continuity and onset of delinquency. Continuity results from delinquent adolescents incorporating troublemaking appraisals into their self-identities and living up to those labels. Identity processes prove unimportant for linking troublemaking appraisals to delinquency among falsely appraised adolescents. Future research is needed to assess the possibility that false appraisals produce delinquency through processes articulated in general strain and defiance theories. We also discuss avenues for future research on race, identities, and delinquency.

Keeping kids in school through prearrest diversion: School disciplinary outcomes of the Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program.

“…Thus, by violating this gender norm, arrested girls may face increased fallout from their school-based incidents, increasing their likelihood of suspension relative to both diverted girls and arrested boys. The fact that we observed differences between arrested and diverted girls, but not arrested and diverted boys, might indicate that diversion serves more of a protective function for girls than it does for boys, a proposition consistent with previous research finding that boys are more likely than girls to be labeled as troublemakers or rule violators, even when they do not engage in delinquent behavior (e.g., Bartusch & Matsueda, 1996;De Coster & Lutz, 2018). Additionally, potential implicit biases about female students of color as disruptive and defiant could contribute to observed disparities, particularly when gender and/or race of students and school personnel do not match (Dee, 2005;Lindsay & Hart, 2017).…”

The Memory Effect of Reflected Self-Appraisals on Different Types of Others

“…In the process of internalization, reflected self-appraisals (what I think you think of me) were hypothesized to evolve into direct self-appraisals (what I think of myself) (Pfeifer and Peake, 2012). The process of reflected self-appraisals is validated in many fields, such as in the academic performance of middle school students (Bouchey and Harter, 2005;Tomasetto et al, 2015), a teacher's teaching ability (Hu et al, 2014), professional athletic ability (Bois et al, 2005;Jose et al, 2015), juvenile delinquency (Walters, 2016;De Coster and Lutz, 2018), and the ethnic identity of ethnic minorities (Khanna, 2010;Sims, 2016). Several neuroimaging studies on the neural substrate of reflected self-appraisals also support this view (Pfeifer et al, 2009;Pfeifer and Peake, 2012;Romund et al, 2016).…”