A “rough test” of a delinquent coping process model of general strain theory

• Subjective strain intervenes between objective strain and its emotional outcomes.
• The effect of strain on delinquent coping is mostly mediated by negative emotions.
• Anger increases non-drug delinquency and drug use, but depression/anxiety does not.
• Depression/anxiety decreases non-drug delinquency, and is unrelated to drug use.
• Delinquent propensity increases the effect of subjective strain on delinquency.

PurposeWe examine a coping-process model Agnew (2013) proposed in his recent extension of general strain theory (GST). We also test whether combining variables conducive to criminal coping increases the chance of detecting their conditioning the effects of strain and negative emotions on coping.MethodsWe applied structural equation modeling to analyze representative data from two waves of the Korean Youth Panel Survey, collected when respondents were eleventh and twelfth graders.ResultsHolding the respondent's prior deviance and sociodemographic and theoretical controls constant, we found the criminogenic effect of objective strain on delinquent coping to be fully mediated by the objective strain's cognitive appraisal (i.e., subjective strain) and the emotional outcomes of strain. In addition, anger was found to increase internalizing (drug use) as well as externalizing coping (non-drug delinquency), whereas depression/anxiety was not related to drug use, though it decreased non-drug delinquency. However, we found little evidence that combining variables conducive to criminal coping is likely to help detect their conditioning effects than using the variables individually.ConclusionsThis study provides empirical support for the coping-process model of extended GST, including the conceptual distinction between objective and subjective strain, except the suggested combinational method to detect a conditioning effect.