The Role of Parental Emotional Support in the Development of Adolescents' Deviant Identity

Abstract

A specific number sociological theories and empirical studies suggest that deviant identity is the result of being formally or informally sanctioned by social audiences. The process by which individuals develop a deviant identity has been well documented by the literature. Most of this literature has linked the development of a deviant identity to the performance of deviant behavior. There is less evidence documenting the maleficent effects of bearing personal deviant characteristics such as stigmatizing health conditions, and/or being an involuntary member of a group socially defined as deviant (e.g. being the child of an alcoholic parent) in the development of a deviant identity. It is also noteworthy that, although parenting has been the focus of hundreds of studies examining deviant behavior and its consequences for individuals and their families, researchers rarely have been concerned with the effects of parenting in the development of a deviant self-concept. This dissertation examines the effects of parental emotional support on the development of a deviant identity by using a longitudinal data set that incorporates information of adolescents aged 12-19 who report their race, gender, level of selfesteem, parental relations, parental deviant behavior/characteristics, and peers and teacher stigmatization. Various models were estimated to test whether the relationship between deviance and deviant identity was significant, the mediating effects of stigmatization by peers and by teachers, and the moderating effect of both maternal and paternal emotional support on the development of a deviant identity. The results indicate that both maternal and paternal emotional support moderated the effect of maternal deviance but not the effect of paternal deviance. In the case of personal deviance, however, maternal deviance tended to increase as opposed to decrease deviant identity. Paternal emotional support did not moderate the effect of health limitations but it did diminish the effect of contact with the police. These findings were independent of the effects of gender, race, socioeconomic status, age, family structure, and earlier deviant identity. The implications and significance of these findings are discussed.