Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX, USA.
Evol Psychol. 2024 Jan-Mar;22(1):14747049241241432. doi: 10.1177/14747049241241432.
While a wealth of research has focused on testing several arguments from Moffitt's developmental taxonomy of antisocial behavior-mainly the presence of life-course-persistent vs. adolescence-limited offending and predictors of each trajectory-much less attention has been devoted to examining how evolutionarily adaptive lifestyle factors common during adolescence may condition the relationship between the maturity gap and delinquent offending. One factor that may play a role during this period of development is alcohol use, as many adolescents begin to experiment with consuming alcohol in varying degrees in social settings to model adult-like behaviors. Yet presently much is unknown about the role of alcohol use on the association between the maturity gap and delinquency. The current study aims to address this void in the literature by analyzing data from a U.S. sample of adolescent males ( = 1,276) to assess whether alcohol use moderates the relationship between the maturity gap and delinquent behavior. Findings suggest that the maturity gap is associated with delinquent behavior and that the association becomes weaker at higher levels of alcohol use. The implications of these findings for Moffitt's maturity gap thesis and male offending from an evolutionary perspective are discussed.
虽然大量研究集中在测试莫菲特反社会行为发展分类中的几个论点上——主要是存在终身持续与青春期有限犯罪以及每种轨迹的预测因素——但很少有人关注在青少年时期常见的、适应进化的生活方式因素如何影响成熟差距与犯罪行为之间的关系。在这个发展阶段，一个可能起作用的因素是酒精使用，因为许多青少年开始在社交场合中以不同程度尝试饮酒，以模仿成人行为。然而，目前对于酒精使用在成熟差距与犯罪之间的关联中的作用知之甚少。本研究旨在通过分析来自美国青少年男性样本的数据（n=1276）来解决文献中的这一空白，以评估酒精使用是否调节成熟差距与犯罪行为之间的关系。研究结果表明，成熟差距与犯罪行为有关，而且在酒精使用水平较高时，这种关联会减弱。从进化的角度讨论了这些发现对莫菲特成熟差距假说和男性犯罪的意义。
