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Future orientation of institutionalized and noninstitutionalized delinquents and nondelinquents
Author(s) -
Trommsdorff Gisela,
Lamm Helmut
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2420100304
Subject(s) - psychology , institutionalisation , conceptualization , juvenile delinquency , orientation (vector space) , construct (python library) , variance (accounting) , social psychology , developmental psychology , geometry , mathematics , accounting , artificial intelligence , psychiatry , computer science , business , programming language
The present study is an analysis of the relationship between delinquency, institutionalization and future orientation, based on a social‐learning theoretical framework. Two hundred and forty male adolescents (institutionalized and noninstitutionalized delinquents and nondelinquents) answered open and structured questions concerning their anticipations and evaluations of the future. The data were analysed by analyses of variance and t‐tests and partly confirm the hypotheses: Delinquents structure their future in a less differentiated, less extended, and more internal way than nondelinquents. This was especially true for the institutionalized delinquents. However, delinquents structured their fears concerning their personal development more extensively than nondelinquents. Future orientation varied according to the length of institutionalization in different domains of life. These results do not support the dominant assumption of the literature that delinquents have an unrealistic future orientation. Rather, it is shown here that institutionalized delinquents anticipate rather negative future events which they expect to occur shortly after the time of their release. However, the present results have to be cautiously interpreted on account of the special selection of the sample and the rather short duration of institutionalization. Also, the method of a differentiated measurement of future orientation used here is hardly practiced in the literature though such a conceptualization as a multidimensional construct seems to be theoretically fruitful.