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Both partner abuse and general crime violate the rights and safety of victims. But are these phenomena the same or are they distinct, demanding their own research and intervention specialties? Are per‐ sons who abuse their partners the same people who commit other criminal behavior? Do partner abuse and general crime share the same correlates? We investigated these questions in a birth cohort of over 800 young adults, by testing whether a personality model known to predict general crime would also predict partner abuse. Personality data were gathered at age 18, and self‐reported partner abuse and general criminal offending were measured at age 21. Results from modeling latent constructs showed that partner abuse and general crime represent different constructs that are moderately related; they are not merely two expressions of the same underlying antisocial propensity. Group comparisons showed many, but not all, partner abusers also engaged in violence against nonintimates. Personality analyses showed that partner abuse and general crime shared a strong propensity from a trait called Negative Emotionality. However, crime was related to weak Constraint (low self‐control), but partner abuse was not. All findings applied to women as well as to men, suggesting that women's partner abuse may be motivated by the same intra‐personal features that motivate men's abuse. The results are consistent with theoretical and applied arguments about the "uniqueness" of partner violence relative to other crime and violence.

Previous studies have explained the transition from criminal propensity in youth to criminal behavior in adulthood with hypotheses of enduring criminal propensity, unique social causation, and cumulative social disadvantage. In this article we develop an additional hypothesis derived from the life‐course concept of interdependence: The effects of social ties on crime vary as a function of individuals' propsensity for crime. We tested these four hypotheses with data from the Dunedin Study. In support of life‐course interdependence, prosocial ties, such as education, employment, family ties, and partnerships, deterred crime, and antisocial ties, such as delinquent peers, promoted crime, most strongly among low self‐control individuals. Our findings bear implications for theories and policies of crime.

This article examines the social‐selection and social‐causation processes that generate criminal behavior. We describe these processes with three theoretical models: a social‐causation model that links crime to contemporaneous social relationships; a social‐selection model that links crime to personal characteristics formed in childhood; and a mixed selection‐causation model that links crime to social relationships and childhood characteristics. We tested these models with a longitudinal study in Dunedin, New Zealand, of individuals followed from birth through age 21. We analyzed measures of childhood and adolescent low self‐control as well as adolescent and adult social bonds and criminal behavior. In support of social selection, we found that low self‐control in childhood predicted disrupted social bonds and criminal offending later in life. In support of social causation, we found that social bonds and adolescent delinquency predicted later adult crime and, further, that the effect of self‐control on crime was largely mediated by social bonds. In support of both selection and causation, we found that the social‐causation effects remained significant even when controlling for preexisting levels of self‐control, but that their effects diminished. Taken together, these findings support theoretical models that incorporate social‐selection and social‐causation processes.

AbstractIt has been shown that lower birthweight is associated with lower IQ, but it remains unclear whether this association is causal or spurious. We examined the relationship between birthweight and IQ in two prospective longitudinal birth cohorts: a UK cohort of 1116 twin pairs (563 monozygotic [MZ] pairs), born in 1994–95, and a New Zealand cohort of 1037 singletons born in 1972–73. IQ was tested with the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children. Birthweight differences within MZ twin pairs predicted IQ differences within pairs, ruling out genetic and shared environmental explanations for the association. Birthweight predicted IQ similarly in the twin and nontwin cohorts after controlling for social disadvantage, attesting that the association generalized beyond twins. An increase of 1000 g in birthweight was associated with a 3 IQ point increase. Results from two cohorts add to evidence that low birthweight is a risk factor for compromised neurological health. Our finding that birthweight differences predict IQ differences within MZ twin pairs provides new evidence that the mechanism can be narrowed to an environmental effect during pregnancy, rather than any familial environmental influence shared by siblings, or genes. With the increasing numbers of low-birthweight infants, our results support the contention that birthweight could be a target for early preventive intervention to reduce the number of children with compromised IQ.

Many theories of crime have linked low levels of socioeconomic status (SES) to high levels of delinquency. However, empirical studies have consistently found weak or nonexistent correlations between individuals' SES and their self‐reported delinquent behavior. Drawing upon recent theoretical innovations (Hagan et al., 1985; Jensen, 1993; Tittle, 1995), we propose that this apparent contradiction between theory and data may be reconciled by recognizing that SES has both a negative and a positive indirect effect upon delinquency that, in tandem, results in little overall correlation between the two. We tested this proposal with longitudinal data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. We used measures of parental SES recorded at study members' birth through age 15, social‐psychological characteristics at age 18, and self‐reported delinquency at ages 18 and 21. We found that low SES promoted delinquency by increasing individuals' alienation, financial strain, and aggression and by decreasing educational and occupational aspirations, whereas high SES promoted individuals' delinquency by increasing risk taking and social power and by decreasing conventional values. These findings suggest a reconciliation between theory and data, and they underscore the conceptual importance of elucidating the full range of causal linkages between SES and delinquency.

We examined the relation between personality traits and crime in two studies. In New Zealand we studied 18‐year‐old males and females from an entire birth cohort. In Pittsburgh we studied an ethnically diverse group of 12‐ and 13‐year‐old boys. In both studies we gathered multiple and independent measures of personality and delinquent involvement. The personality correlates of delinquency were robust in different nations, in different age cohorts, across gender, and across race: greater delinquent participation was associated with a personality configuration characterized by high Negative Emotionality and weak Constraint. We suggest that when Negative Emotionality (the tendency to experience aversive affective states) is accompanied by weak Constraint (difficulty in impulse control), negative emotions may be translated more readily into antisocial acts. We review additional evidence about the developmental origins and consequences of this personality configuration and discuss its implications for theories about antisocial behavior.

Objective: To investigate associations between the characteristics of the neighbourhoods young adults live in and their feelings of loneliness, using data from different sources. Method: Data were drawn from the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study. Loneliness was measured via self-reports at ages 12 and 18, and also by interviewer ratings at age 18. Neighbourhood characteristics were assessed between ages 12 and 18 via government data, systematic social observations, a resident survey, and participants' self-reports. Results: Greater loneliness was associated with perceptions of lower collective efficacy and greater neighbourhood disorder, but not with more objective measures of neighbourhood characteristics. Lonelier individuals perceived the collective efficacy of their neighbourhoods to be lower than did their less lonely siblings who lived at the same address. Conclusion: These findings suggest that feelings of loneliness are associated with negatively-biased perceptions of neighbourhood characteristics, which may have implications for lonely individuals' likelihood of escaping loneliness. Keywords: loneliness, social isolation, neighbourhood, collective efficacy, social cohesion

The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study: Adults As Parents And Children At Age 50

AbstractWhat impact does formal punishment have on antisocial conduct—does it deter or promote it? The findings from a long line of research on the labeling tradition indicate formal punishments have the opposite‐of‐intended consequence of promoting future misbehavior. In another body of work, the results show support for deterrence‐based hypotheses that punishment deters future misbehavior. So, which is it? We draw on a nationally representative sample of British adolescent twins from the Environmental Risk (E‐Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study to perform a robust test of the deterrence versus labeling question. We leverage a powerful research design in which twins can serve as the counterfactual for their co‐twin, thereby ruling out many sources of confounding that have likely impacted prior studies. The pattern of findings provides support for labeling theory, showing that contact with the justice system—through spending a night in jail/prison, being issued an anti‐social behaviour order (ASBO), or having an official record—promotes delinquency. We conclude by discussing the impact these findings may have on criminologists' and practitioners' perspective on the role of the juvenile justice system in society.

In this study, we investigated associations between the characteristics of the neighborhoods in which young adults live and their feelings of loneliness, using data from different sources. Participants were drawn from the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study. Loneliness was measured via self-reports at ages 12 and 18 years and also by interviewer ratings at age 18. Neighborhood characteristics were assessed between the ages of 12 and 18 via government data, systematic social observations, a resident survey, and participants' self-reports. Greater loneliness was associated with perceptions of lower collective efficacy and greater neighborhood disorder but not with more objective measures of neighborhood characteristics. Lonelier individuals perceived the collective efficacy of their neighborhoods to be lower than did their less lonely siblings who lived at the same address. These findings suggest that feelings of loneliness are associated with negatively biased perceptions of neighborhood characteristics, which may have implications for lonely individuals' likelihood of escaping loneliness.

AbstractTo design effective provaccination messaging, it is important to know "where people are coming from"—the personal experiences and long-standing values, motives, lifestyles, preferences, emotional tendencies, and information-processing capacities of people who end up resistant or hesitant toward vaccination. We used prospective data from a 5-decade cohort study, spanning childhood to midlife, to construct comprehensive early-life psychological histories of groups who differed in their vaccine intentions in months just before COVID vaccines became available in their country. Vaccine-resistant and vaccine-hesitant participants had histories of adverse childhood experiences that foster mistrust, longstanding mental-health problems that foster misinterpretation of messaging, and early-emerging personality traits including tendencies toward extreme negative emotions, shutting down mentally under stress, nonconformism, and fatalism about health. Many vaccine-resistant and -hesitant participants had cognitive difficulties in comprehending health information. Findings held after control for socioeconomic origins. Vaccine intentions are not short-term isolated misunderstandings. They are part of a person's style of interpreting information and making decisions that is laid down before secondary school age. Findings suggest ways to tailor vaccine messaging for hesitant and resistant groups. To prepare for future pandemics, education about viruses and vaccines before or during secondary schooling could reduce citizens' level of uncertainty during a pandemic, and provide people with pre-existing knowledge frameworks that prevent extreme emotional distress reactions and enhance receptivity to health messages. Enhanced medical technology and economic resilience are important for pandemic preparedness, but a prepared public who understands the need to mask, social distance, and vaccinate will also be important.