Unselfish Motivations and Deviance: An Empirical Examination of Social Concern Theory among South Korean Adolescents

Can Social Concern Theory Explain Quarantine-Related Misbehavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic? An Inquiry in the Urban Context of Iran

“…This was illustrated through bivariate and multivariate analyses, and they provided support for the first study hypothesis. These results were also generally consistent with previous tests of SCT (Chouhy et al, 2017; Craig, 2017; Hong et al, 2019; Shadmanfaat et al, 2021; TenEyck & Barnes, 2018). Our study explicitly used measures of social concern as developed by Agnew (2014) and was the first, as far as we know, to use SCT in the explanation of individual differences in COVID-19 misbehavior.…”

Social Concern Theory and Family Violence Among Latino Families

“…There has been a recent surge of research testing the core propositions of Agnew's (2014) social concern theory (Choi et l., 2022;Chouhy et al, 2017;Craig, 2017;Hong et al, 2019;Kabiri et al, 2024;TenEyck & Barnes, 2019). Unlike traditional criminological theories that largely portray justice-involved individuals as being in the pursuit of self-interest (e.g., Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), social concern theory maintains that people have biological inclinations to care for the welfare of others, desire close ties with certain individuals, follow certain moral intuitions, and conform to the behaviors of others.…”

“…Since its inception, a growing body of studies have tested social concern theory’s core components, but most of these studies are partial tests of select components ( Craig, 2017 ; TenEyck & Barnes, 2019 ) or populations ( Hong et al, 2019 ). For example, Craig (2017) tested the theory’s efficacy on white-collar and street crime, finding that low empathy (the study’s measure for caring for the welfare of others) is significant in predicting credit card fraud, embezzlement, and shoplifting.…”

“…Again, this study is limited because it did not contain measures for close ties, moral intuitions, or conforming to others. Hong et al (2019) provide another partial test of the theory to understand the delinquent behavior of Korean adolescents. This study showed that strong teacher bonding strengthens a youth’s social concern (a combination of the inclination to follow moral intuitions and caring for the welfare of others), which in return was found to be negative and significant in predicting delinquency.…”