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Unraveling the Relationships between Low Self-Control, Substance Use, Substance-Using Peers, and Violent Victimization

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Abstract

Low self-control, substance use, and affiliations with delinquent peers have been tied to victimization, but the related relationships between these variables and their effects on violent victimization have rarely been studied. The current study considers whether low self-control, substance use, and affiliations with substance-using peers shape violent victimization, and how these variables are related to one another, within an integrated self-control/routine activities theoretical model using path modeling in MPLUS and two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). Results suggest that (1) low self-control increases substance use and affiliations with substance-using peers, (2) substance use and affiliations with substance-using peers reciprocally shape each other, and (3) all three variables directly and indirectly shape violent victimization, providing direction for theoretical and policy development.

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Notes

  1. Missing data on the independent and control variables was handled via multiple imputation in Stata, while missing data on the dependent variable was left as missing.

  2. In the current analyses, peer substance use was measured with a composite measure of substance use, while individual substance use was captured using three separate measures. This methodology was selected for several reasons. First, prior research on Add Health has traditionally treated the peer substance use as a univariate delinquency measure. Second, the various forms of substance use tend to be correlated, such that substance-using peers may influence self substance use as a whole, rather than specific types having an effect on individual usage generally. Third, respondents’ peers were only asked about certain types of substance use, which did not directly equivocate with those asked of respondents themselves; thus, the attempt here was to use the most closely equivalent questions to best capture the concept of delinquent peers via substance use.

  3. Because Mplus automatically specifies covariances between all variables, the battery of controls did not need to be the same for each path. This specification avoids overidentifying the model (i.e., by including unnecessary syntax), and the model was identical to a model in which all of the covariates would have been included for both paths of the model.

  4. In all models, both the paths linking low self-control to individual substance use and victimization, as well as those linking low self-control to peer substance use and victimization, were specified. Because Mplus allows simultaneous estimation, the reciprocal relationships were held to 0, to isolate individual effects.

  5. The models were estimated using weighted least squares estimation, to enable the ability to measure model fit in models with categorical outcomes. Model fit is also typically assessed with R2, which also serves to demonstrate a variable’s influence in explaining variability in the dependent variable. Due to the ordinal nature of the endogenous variable in the path analyses, there is no equivalent measure of R2, though pseudo R-squared measures can replace its role as a measure of goodness-of-fit, and are reported for each full model (Ordinal Logistic Regression: Mplus Data Analysis Examples).

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Author notes

  1. Stephen J. Watts and Amaia Iratzoqui contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Memphis, 311 McCord Hall, Memphis, TN, 38152, USA

    Stephen J. Watts & Amaia Iratzoqui

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  1. Stephen J. Watts
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Correspondence to Stephen J. Watts.

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APPENDIX: Items for Scaled Variables

APPENDIX: Items for Scaled Variables

Low Self-Control

  1. 1.

    All things considered, how is your child’s life going?

  2. 2.

    You get along well with your child.

  3. 3.

    You can trust your child.

  4. 4.

    Does your child have a bad temper?

  5. 5.

    You never argue with anyone.

  6. 6.

    When you get what you want, it’s usually because you worked hard for it.

  7. 7.

    You never criticize other people.

  8. 8.

    Difficult problems make you very upset.

  9. 9.

    When making decisions, you usually go with your “gut feeling” without thinking too much about the consequences of each alternative.

  10. 10.

    When you have a problem to solve, one of the first things you do is get as many facts about the problem as possible.

  11. 11.

    When attempting to find a solution to a problem, you usually try to think of as many different ways to approach the problem as possible.

  12. 12.

    When making decisions, you generally use a systematic method for judging and comparing alternatives.

  13. 13.

    After carrying out a solution to a problem, you usually try to analyze what went right and what went wrong.

  14. 14.

    You feel socially accepted.

  15. 15.

    Do you have trouble getting along with your teachers?

  16. 16.

    Do you have trouble paying attention in school?

  17. 17.

    Do you have trouble keeping your mind focused?

  18. 18.

    Do you have trouble getting along with other students?

  19. 19.

    Do you have trouble getting your homework done?

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Watts, S.J., Iratzoqui, A. Unraveling the Relationships between Low Self-Control, Substance Use, Substance-Using Peers, and Violent Victimization. Am J Crim Just 44, 979–997 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-019-09491-7

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