Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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- All Subjects: Developmental Psychology
- Creators: Sweeten, Gary
Description
Life course criminology is characterized by a two-pronged approach to research. The first branch emphasizes social integration and involvement with pro-social institutions as turning points in the criminal career. The second branch of this work assesses how access to the institutions that facilitate social integration are conditioned by factors such as involvement in the criminal justice system. Theories of capital are chiefly concerned with social integration and the continuity of conventionality, conformity, and prosperity offered through social ties and social networks. Absent from life course criminology is a better understanding of how different forms of criminal capital can influence access to institutions like higher education, marriage, and employment during the transition to adulthood. Drawing on insights from distinct bodies of literature on peers, capital, and status attainment, the present study elaborates on the influence of criminal capital for (un)successful transitions to adulthood. Using three waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (“Add Health”), the effects of adolescent criminal social capital on criminal cultural and human capital, and subsequent educational, occupational, and marital attainment in early adulthood are examined. Results from a series of regression models demonstrate that criminal social capital has minimal effects on fatalistic beliefs or thoughtful and reflective decision making, and that these forms of criminal capital generally have inconsistent effects on later life transitions. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.
ContributorsMoule, Richard Kenneth Jr (Author) / Decker, Scott H. (Thesis advisor) / Sweeten, Gary (Committee member) / Wallace, Danielle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Criminological theories have long incorporated personality traits as key explanatory factors and have generally relied on assumptions of trait stability. However, growing evidence from a variety of fields including criminology, psychology, and neurobiology is demonstrating that personality traits are malleable over the life-course, and substantial individual variation exists in the developmental patterns of personality traits over time. This research is forcing criminologists to consider how and why “enduring” individual characteristics may change over the life course in ways that are meaningfully related to offending. Two traits that have been consistently linked to offending and conflated in key criminological theories (i.e. Gottfredson and Hirschi’s self-control theory), impulsivity and sensation seeking, have recently been shown to be independent personality traits with different normative maturational timetables and biological underpinnings. This dissertation extends this work by examining developmental patterns of impulsivity and sensation seeking and social sources of variation in these traits with the Family and Community Health Survey, a longitudinal data set that consists of approximately 900 African American youth and their families followed from late childhood to their late-twenties. Multiple longitudinal modeling methods are employed (hierarchical linear modeling and group-based trajectory modeling) to address this research agenda. Results from this dissertation lead to four broad conclusions. First, and in support of existing research, there is substantial variability in developmental trajectories of impulsivity and sensation seeking. Average developmental trajectories of these traits greatly mask the degree of individual variability in developmental patterns that exists. Second, social factors are significantly associated with levels of impulsivity and sensation seeking. Socio-environmental experiences characterized by hostility and unsupportiveness are generally associated with elevated levels of impulsivity and sensation seeking while socio-environmental experiences characterized by warmth and supportiveness are associated with lower levels of impulsivity and sensation seeking. Third, sex differences in developmental patterns of impulsivity are nonexistent while sex differences in developmental patterns of sensation seeking are significant. Finally, with few exceptions, predictors of trait levels operate in a general fashion such the same factors typically explain both male and female trait levels and produce similar effects on impulsivity and sensation seeking.
ContributorsHannula, Kara Valentina (Author) / Sweeten, Gary (Thesis advisor) / Decker, Scott (Committee member) / Fine, Adam (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
From a theoretical and policy perspective, little is known about the life-course development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people in criminology. In particular, turning points for LGBTQ+ people have not received much theoretical discussion or testing. The lack of theoretical discussion persists even though LGBTQ+ people are overrepresented in the criminal legal system. To address this gap, the current dissertation seeks to queer the life-course perspective in criminology. This dissertation takes stock of the relevancy of traditional turning points (marriage and employment) for LGBTQ+ people, examines through a critical lens the cis- and hetero-normative construction of life-course and theoretical criminology, and theorizes turning points specific to LGBTQ+ people. This dissertation draws on scholarship from various disciplines to present and test an interdisciplinary framework that theorizes three queer turning points: (1) the coming-out process (Chapter 2), (2) family reaction to LGBTQ+ identity (Chapter 3), and (3) establishing a chosen family (Chapter 4). This study is among the first to collect original data via life history interviews with 25 formerly incarcerated LGBTQ+ people to offer comprehensive and in-depth examinations into the relationships between the coming out process, family reaction to LGBTQ+ identity, and chosen family on offending and desistance trajectories. Collectively, findings indicate that these queer turning points are significant life experiences that shape the development and offending/desistance trajectories among formerly incarcerated LGBTQ+ people. In particular, these queer turning points are linked to increases and decreases in offending across the life-course, which are highly contextualized by generational and structural factors. In addition, this work explores how coming out, family reaction, and chosen family shape interactions with the criminal legal system among LGBTQ+ people. Overall, this dissertation expands the queer perspective within life-course criminology through the lens of queer turning points and can shape future policies that meet the needs and best support LGBTQ+ people.
ContributorsMorgan, Skyler (Author) / Fox, Kathleen A. (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Xia (Committee member) / Sweeten, Gary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023