Social Control Versus Social Learning: Self

The purpose of this study was to determine whether low self-efficacy for future academic success and peer delinquency mediated the relationship between weak parental support and delinquency, and if so, establish the order of mediation. Members of the Flint (Michigan) Adolescent Study (N = 850) served as participants in this study, which compared a pathway based on social control principles (weak parental support → low self-efficacy → peer delinquency → participant delinquency) with a pathway based on social learning principles (weak parental support → peer delinquency → low self-efficacy → delinquency). Path analysis was conducted and revealed that the social control pathway was significant, the social learning pathway was nonsignificant, and the difference between the two pathways was significant. These results suggest that low parental support facilitates delinquency, in part, by lowering self-efficacy for future academic success, a component of the larger construct of self-efficacy for conventional behavior, which, in turn, promotes delinquent peer associations. From a theoretical perspective, these results are more consistent with a social control interpretation of the parental support–delinquency relationship than with a social learning interpretation, although aspects of social learning theory were also supported by the results of this study