Agnews General Strain Theory (GST) Summary and Analysis

Agnews full world(a) prolong scheme (GST) Summary and AnalysisINTRODUCTIONAccording to an Ameri stern Psychological Association survey, 73% of Americans named money as the primary affecter of their form levels. Stress can be influenced by a variety of concomitantors however, whether it is accruement of riches, death of a supporter, or perhaps personnel casualty of job. Anger and picture argon often are the results of failing to fulfil goals, such as a student struggling to fit in with his peers or with the loss of a positively treasured stimuli such as a friend or family member. Peoples methods of header with distort can feign two habitual avenues, the first avenue creation the use of legitimate meaning of achieving goals or grapple with stress, such as seeking professional help, and the second being illegitimate means, for example, bullying kids at school because of frustrations of not fitting in. atomic number 18 people much in all likelihood to commit crime when stressed? This interrogatory would be answered yes by Robert Agnew and can be examined development his command zephyr guess which explores the causes seam, how to measure agate line, the relationship among hand and crime, as healthful as policy implications based directly off his theory.A instruct HISTORY OF STRAIN THEORYEmile Durkheim first popularized the term anomie, which essentially is delimit normlessness, or the instability that make outs when norms and cultural values breakdown. Durkheim argued that during rapid changes that suffer piazza in fel scummyship, norms result breakdown.Robert King Merton in 1938 used the root of anomie to help develop the foundation for strain theory. Merton argues that the struggle to accumulate wealth is the chief cause of strain (Merton 1938 670).Merton suggests that on that point are two central elements of br another(prenominal)ly structure. The first contains cultural goals, the function of the goals, and interests (Merton 1938 672). The second phase of the social structure defines how society is to go about achieving these goals, by placing regulations and creating laws (Merton 1938 673). The American ambition is a popular culturally defined goal, Merton argued, which through honest-dedicated work, anyone can come upon this dream of wealth. Society defines what avenues are to be considered legitimate to strive this goal, for example, earning a college degree and earning a high paying job would be a legitimate path as defined by our society. Since wealth in American is not distributed personifyly Merton (1938) argued that strain often occurs for those who are undercapitalized and do not have access to these legitimate means.Merton (1938) illustrates four responses to this strain. The first, conformity, Merton suggests that people who take this path subscribe to cultural goals and go about achieving these goals by using societys institutionalized means. The second path, innovation, suggests that when a person finds that an obstacle inhibits the ability to achieve the cultural goals, the person volition not use institutionalized means rather, they leave employ other means.The third path, ritualism, describes a person that will reject the culture goals of society, but use its institutions as an avenue for advancement. The fourth, is the frozen opposite of the path of conformity such that a person who is retreatist will reject cultural goals and its institutionalized means, people that take this path are people who essentially are not part of society (Merton 1938 674).Furthering Mertons ideas in 1994, Messer and Rosenfeld expanded on idea of the American Dream as an product line of reprehensibleity. Messer and Rosenfeld (1994) state that the heavy emphasis on American Dream encour dates criminal impulses while creating a weak normative environment.Agnews Revision of gillyflower guessRobert Agnew, who devised a revise to previous strain theories, argued that well -nigh of the previous theories credit crime to the failure of adolescents to accomplish traditional goals defined by society through legitimate avenues (Agnew 1985). Agnew (1992) states that despite criticism from distinguished theorists such as Travis Hirschi, strain theory can be vital in the interpretation of around wickedness, although to do so effectively, strain theory needs revision.Agnew cites that if in fact the previous theories were to be true, it would be expected that crime would occur when there would be there a strong relish for financial winner and a low expectation of fulfilling that desire (Agnew 1985). However, Agnew (1985), suggests that psychometric tests have proved differently.According to Agnew (2001) studies show that delinquency peaks when desires, goals, and the expectation of achieving the desires or goals are low, and delinquency is lowest when desires, goals and the expectation of accomplishing the goals are high(Agnew 2001). This is only one ex ample of how Agnew began his revisionAgnews General Strain TheoryAgnews strain theory is focus oned on the individual(a) level and their immediate social environment (Agnew 199248). Where most other strain theories, such as Mertons, put a heavy focus on accumulation of wealth, a structural cultural goal, Agnew tends to focus on goals that cause strain other than wealth accumulation. Agnew (1992) identifies three major sources of strain, being, the saloon or blockage of achieving positively valued goals, the removal of positively valued stimuli, and the threat or presentation of shunly valued stimuli.Failure to hit GoalsAgnew (199251) describes multiple types of strain that fall under the category of failing to achieve positively valued goals. They are (1) strain as the disjuncture betwixt expectations and actual achievements not achieving these goals is likely to cause anger, dissatisfaction, and disappointment, this cause of strain connects posterior to previous strain theor ies, such as Mertons (Agnew 199251). (2) Strain as the disjunction between just or fair outcomes and actual outcome. This source looks beyond patently failing to achieve a goal of monetary victor or doing well in school (Agnew 199253). An example of this source of strain would be when an outcome of a situation conflicts with what the individual believed they deserved.Lets say a sales worker who thought they deserved a promotion collectable to good sales performance gets demoted while mortal with less enfranchisement get promoted. This can lead to strain due to inequity, where an individual will feel that they are unequal to those of their peers and will subsequently increase the chances they ensnarl in delinquency. The main reason for delinquency in this case is to flak to improve their outcome, such as lying on sales and fudging the books, or affect others outcome, such as writing slanderous rumors that get roundone fired (Agnew 199254).Removal of StimuliAgnew describes tha t by removing a positively valued stimuli it has the dominance to cause strain. Getting something of great value stolen from you would be an example of the removal. The desire to get the object back could lead to a person committing tatterdemalion acts by seeking revenge for those responsible.Negative StimuliThe existence of unpleasant stimuli can lead to delinquent behavior through the following avenue Agnew (1992) states that a person may seek an escape from the ostracise stimuli, by nerve-wracking to dispose of the stimuli. An example of removing stimuli could be someone shooting up a school because they were bullied, thus terminating the negative stimuli.CrimeIn short, using the supra sources of strain, it is clear that negative relationships with other have potential to cause strain in an individual and in turn result in negative emotions. Agnew (1992) argues that the key emotion associated with General Strain theory is anger. A negative affect such as anger, is likely to l ead an individual to take corrective steps to quell their anger. Often times anger leads an individual to seek revenge and is also a strong motivator for action.Broidys canvasAgnews Theory state that strains are shaped by various factors, including the nature, intensity, and continuation of the strain, the emotions that the strain produces in the individual, the collection of coping mechanisms at an individuals disposal (Broidy 200110). By measuring these factors, primarily intensity and duration of strain, General Strain Theory can be empirically tested by criminologists. (Broidy 200110)Lisa Broidy, from the University of New Mexico, examined ford sectional data of 896 undergraduate students from seven different disciplines, who participated in egotism report surveys. Although Broidy (2001) suggests that the non random sample is not ideal, being neither good example of all college students nor representative to the population as a whole is effectual for the purpose of this tes t. Broidy (2001) asserts that by testing the theory with most middle- sectionalization, white college age students, it ensures that the results of the test are not spurious.Using the survey data to test three hypothesizes, Broidy found that a failure to achieve goals that were set by an individual were less likely to result in anger where a failure to achieve goals due unfair circumstances were much much likely to cause negative emotions. This study done by Broidy appears to be consistent with universal strain theory such that, anger induce from strain is likely to lead to illegitimate coping strategies. However, Broidys study yielded some results that were not consistent with General Strain Theory. For example, the finding that anger is orthogonal to the likelihood of legitimate coping, is a finding that is not assumed in General Strain Theory (Broidy 200129), as the theory does in fact predict that negative emotions like anger would be associated with legitimate coping strategi es.Also found in this study was that females were much less likely to employ illegitimate coping strategies than males, leading Broidy to suggest that future studies of general strain theory should study the effect that gender has on assumptions depict in general strain theory. (Broidy 2001)Since Agnews major revision in 1992 there has been a substantial amount of empirical tests like Broidys, which there had not been previously (Froggio 2007 392-394). Much of the test results conducted between 1992 and 2003 confirms that correlation exists between stressful events, strain induced anger, and criminal activity. However, Froggio (2007) argues that despite evidence of correlation between delinquency and assumptions of General Strain Theory, the correlation is not clear pass over in that many of the surveys conducted were limited. Moreover, Froggio (2007), argues that surveys in the future should incorporate Agnews assumptions of when crime is most likely to occur.Policy Implications After reading the literature, policy implications for General Strain Theory become obvious. Since General Strain Theory builds off the idea that blocked goals cause negative emotions such as anger, it should be emphasised that going to anger management is appropriate route to coping with stress rather than using alternative means such as walloping someone up. Encouraging K-12 schools to teach children that the accumulation of wealth is not what is success necessary is could be another implication based off of this theory, by doing this it could encourage children to value family, job stability, and good health rather than simply becoming wealthy. Although difficult, equalizing the opportunity for all to become successful would prove to be effective based on the assumptions of strain theories. Equalizing opportunities could include paying females equal wages, or provide more intensive education in low income areas, as well as making it easier for those in lower socioeconomic classe s to attend college.Strengths, Weaknesses, and CommentsGeneral strain theory can be behind to subscribe to due in part to its broad scope, and General Strain Theory unlike previous strain theories is able to focus on middle and lower class delinquency, rather than exclusively lower class like Merton. Some empirical evidence regarding general strain theory shows a strong correlate between negative emotions (anger) caused by strain and criminal activity.However, General Strain Theory fails to explain why some individuals who experience great amounts of strain fail to resort to illegitimate coping strategies.General Strain Theory by definition is a logically sound theory, as it is not tautological, and can clearly be falsified. General Strain theory in my opinion is parsimonious in its general explanation of why strain causes crime, but latent variables such as gender, age, race, neighborhood, and other factors make it complicated when it boils down to experimental testing. Although t he theory appears to be logical and fits the criteria for being a good theory by what was wise to(p) in CRMJ 301, I have become a skeptic of the theory. In order for a person like me, who is eternally critical, to become an uphold of a theory like such, I would like to see more comprehensive studies done. If money and resources were not an issue I would suggest organizing a birth cohort study, where a team follows children from birth until they are in their 25. This would let the researchers look at various factors that cause strain firsthand, by doing interviews and surveys more frequently. Until then I believe that General Strain Theory is incomplete but if incorporated with other theories it can be implemental in explaining some delinquency.