The Relationship Between Family Support and Goal-setting in a Sample of Court-involved Youth
Author: Miranda G. Yannon
Publisher:
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFamily factors, such as parental monitoring and support, are some of the most well-established predictors of juvenile delinquency (Loeber, 1990). Family support is especially important during adolescence as greater support can help youth desist from delinquent behavior, develop a more positive future orientation, and develop stronger goal-setting skills (e.g., Massey et al., 2008; Vassallo et al., 2016). Not only does goal-setting impact aspects of adolescent development that help youth transition successfully to adulthood, but setting specific goals also impacts concrete behavioral outcomes, and recent research has started investigating this relationship in the criminal justice context (Lee & Vondracek, 2014; Locke & Latham, 1990; Nurmi, 1993). Many arrested youth experience deficits in skills such as goal-setting, and they often have trouble setting more specific goals (Carroll et al., 2013); therefore, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that stronger goal-setting skills may be associated with less antisocial behavior. Because research suggests that youth with more family support tend to engage in less delinquent behavior (e.g., Vassallo et al., 2016), and because greater family support is also associated with stronger goal-setting (e.g., Zhu et al., 2014), one way supportive families can protect against adolescent delinquency may be by helping their children set prosocial goals. Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (SCT; Bandura, 1986) demonstrates how families can impact both goal-setting and delinquent behavior through processes such as modeling, but there is little to no existing research that examines these variables concurrently with arrested youth. The present study attempted to address this gap by exploring the relationships between family support, goal-setting, and delinquency. Specifically, the current study hypothesized a mediational model in which goal-setting skills would partially mediate the relationship between family support and delinquency. This was examined in a sample of 84 adolescents involved in the justice system from two mid-sized metropolitan Midwestern counties.