General strain and delinquency: An alternative examination of conditioninginfluences

One of the key assumptions of Agnews general strain theory (GST) is that va rious factors condition the effect of strain on delinquency. Past research examining this question, however, has not revealed consistent support for t his hypothesis. The accumulating negative evidence on the conditioning hypo thesis suggests that the theory may need to be revised or, alternatively, t hat past studies simply were unable to uncover valid relationships because of the analytical methods employed. In the current examination, we use data from the National Youth Survey and contingency table analyses to examine w hether the strain-delinquency relationship is conditioned by various risk f actors such as exposure to delinquent peers, holding deviant beliefs, and h aving a behavioral propensity toward delinquency. The results reveal both c ross-sectional and longitudinal support for the conditioning hypothesis der ived from GST. Implications for future research on GST are discussed.