Abstract

This study, using a sample of youth offenders from the Pathways to Desistance Study (N = 1354), examines Greenberger and Sorensen’s model of “psychosocial maturity” as a predictor of legal socialization (legal cynicism and legitimacy) across the adolescent developmental course, as well as the differential importance of this relationship by age. Psychosocial maturity significantly predicted lower levels of legal cynicism, but also lower levels of legitimacy, from ages 14–25. Yet, when considering the salience of these relationships by age, results suggest that the relationship between psychosocial maturity and legitimacy may show little variation as adolescent offenders age, but that the salience of psychosocial maturity on explaining patterns of legal cynicism declines with age during development into emerging adulthood. This work’s potential implications for promising interventions that foster psychosocial maturity in early adolescence to reduce legal cynicism of youth who have offended or are at high-risk of offending are discussed.

摘要

这项研究使用了来自“戒毒之路研究”（N = 1354），研究了格林伯格和索伦森的“社会心理成熟度”模型作为整个青少年发展过程中法律社会化（法律犬儒主义和合法性）的预测因素，以及这种关系随年龄的不同重要性。从 14 岁到 25 岁，社会心理成熟度显着预测法律犬儒主义水平较低，但合法性水平也较低。然而，当考虑到这些关系在年龄上的显着性时，结果表明，随着青少年犯罪者年龄的增长，社会心理成熟度与合法性之间的关系可能几乎没有变化，但在解释法律愤世嫉俗模式时，社会心理成熟度的显着性随着年龄的增长而下降。即将成年。