NCJ Number
185081
Journal
Legal and Criminological Psychology Volume: 5 Issue: 2 Dated: September 2000 Pages: 261-272
Date Published
September 2000
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study explores the relationship between outcome expectancies for crime, existential fear, and the negative consequences of criminal involvement.
Abstract
A group of 98 Federal prison inmates completed three brief checklists: one designed to measure outcome expectancies for crime, one that surveyed various fears and concerns, and one that assessed the negative consequences of crime. Each measure had been divided into separate social attachment, control, and identity scales prior to the start of the study. A confirmatory factor analysis of each measure uncovered modest support for the division of items into social, control, and identity scales. The measures were then revised by dropping poorly differentiated items. Using these revised scales, a stronger relationship was observed between fear and expectancies than between negative consequences and expectancies. Structural modeling showed that the relationships were complex and general rather than simple and specific. These findings indicate that social learning factors interact in their effect on crime and that outcome expectancies for crime are a complex function of both affective factors such as fear and cognitive factors such as the negative consequence of past criminal activities. Tables, references