Social control, self-control and psychosocial problems in adolescent males

‘Psychosocial problems’ are psychological problems that are regarded as resulting from the interaction between the adaptive capacities of individuals and the demands of their physical and social environments. Many different factors have been theoretically proposed, and empirically established, as predictors of a range of psychosocial problems in adolescents. However, a problem exists in that this literature appears to lack an integrative framework that has validity across the range of problems that are observed. The purpose of the current research is to propose and test a model that draws together three clusters of factors that are useful in predicting the incidence of adolescent psychosocial problems. These are family structural background factors, family functioning variables and control beliefs. Data were collected from 155 adolescent males aged between 12 and 19 by a single concurrent and retrospective self-report questionnaire. This included data about the respondent (age, involvements with mental health or juvenile justice agencies) and family structural background factors (days per week worked by mother/father, occupational status for mother/father, residential mobility, number of persons in the family home). The questionnaire also incorporated the Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker, Tupling & Brown, 1979) to quantify the levels of perceived parental care and overprotection, and an adaptation of the Parental Discipline Style Scale (Shaw & Scott, 1991), to assess punitive, love withdrawing and inductive discipline practices. In addition, the (Low) Self-control Scale (Grasmick, Tittle, Bursick & Arneklev, 1993) and the Locus of Control of Behaviour Scale (Craig, Franklin, & Andrews, 1984) were used to collect data concerning adolescents’ perceived behavioural self-control and locus of control. Finally, selected sub-scales of the Child Behavior Checklist Youth Self-Report (Achenbach, 1991b) were used to collect data on the incidence of social withdrawal, somatisation, anxiety and depression, aggression and delinquency among the respondents, and in aggregated form, the incidence of ‘total problems’ and internalising and externalising behaviours. Results indicated family structural background factors, family functioning variables and control beliefs possess limited predicted validity and that the usefulness of the proposed model varies between specific psychosocial problems. Family functioning variables were generally stronger predictors than family structural background factors, particularly for internalising behaviours. Of these, levels of parental care and overprotection were generally the strongest predictors. Perceived self-control and locus of control were also generally strong predictors, but were particularly powerful with respect to externalising behaviours. The strength of predictive relationships was observed to vary between specific internalising and externalising behaviours, suggesting that individual difference variables not assessed in the current research were differentially influential. Finally, the parental and individual characteristics that predicted maximal levels of adjustment (defined in terms of minimal levels of internalising and externalising behaviours) were explored and the correlates of various parenting style typologies (Parker et al., 1979) were investigated. These results strongly confirmed the importance of family functioning and control beliefs with respect to the prediction of internalising, externalising and well-adjusted behaviours. In all analyses, substantial proportions of the variance in the incidence of problem behaviours remain unexplained. The findings are examined in relation to previous research focused on (familial) social control and (individual) self-control with respect to psychosocial problems in adolescents. In addition, methodological considerations are discussed and the implications of the findings for clinical and community interventions to address problem behaviours, and for further study, are explored