Neighborhood Attachment as a Moderator of the Relationship between Collective Efficacy and Delinquency

Juvenile delinquency is a problem that is costly to both the individual offender as well as society at large. Previous research has examined many predictors of juvenile delinquency, including collective efficacy. Collective efficacy is a well established construct in the neighborhood literature, and is a measure of how cohesive residents are within a neighborhood as well as how effective residents are at controlling crime (Sampson & Raudenbush, 1997). Higher levels of collective efficacy are related to lower levels of delinquency, but less is known about variables that may influence the strength of this relationship. One proposed variable that may influence the strength of this relationship is neighborhood attachment (Burchfield, 2009). Neighborhood attachment is the deep emotional bond created through a social-psychological process that individuals form toward their neighborhoods over time (Comstock et al., 2010). This thesis proposed that at high levels of neighborhood attachment, the relationship between collective efficacy and neighborhood attachment will be stronger than at lower levels of neighborhood attachment. Moderation by neighborhood attachment was not supported. In addition, neighborhood attachment was found to be positively associated with delinquency. Implications for future research are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology/Clinical

Grantor dc:publisher

Bowling Green State University

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Amrhein, Kelly E.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Tompsett, Carolyn

• Psychology
• collective efficacy
• neighborhood attachment
• place attachment
• juvenile delinquency

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1363344203

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:bgsu1363344203