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Delinquent behaviour and attitudes to formal authority
Author(s) -
Reicher Stephen,
Emler Nicholas
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1985.tb00677.x
Subject(s) - psychology , social psychology , alienation , variance (accounting) , juvenile delinquency , impartiality , sample (material) , perception , adjudication , developmental psychology , law , political science , chemistry , accounting , chromatography , neuroscience , business
A scale was developed to assess attitudes towards formal authority in the school and in the public domain (police and law). Data derived from a sample of young adolescents (13 years) indicated that attitudes towards authority in these two domains were highly rated ( r = 0·57, P < 0·001). Factor analysis yielded four interpretable factors—alienation from the institutional system, belief in the absolute priority of rules, perception of the bias vs. impartiality of authorities, and personal relationship to school life—accounting for 47·6, 13·9, 9·3 and 8·0 per cent of common variance respectively. Both overall attitude scores and factor scores were significantly related to self‐reported delinquencies. Finally, covariance analysis of the results indicated that the attitude variable accounted for a substantial proportion of the sex difference in delinquency.