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General strain theory

General strain theory (GST) is a midrange criminological theory formulated by sociologist Robert Agnew in 1992, positing that exposure to strains—defined as adverse events, conditions, or circumstances that disrupt or threaten an individual's preferred life circumstances—increases the probability of criminal and delinquent behavior by engendering negative emotions such as anger, frustration, and depression, which in turn prompt coping responses that may include crime when legitimate alternatives are perceived as ineffective or unavailable.^[1]^[2] Unlike earlier macro-level strain theories, such as Robert Merton's anomie paradigm focused on blocked access to culturally valued economic goals, GST operates at the individual level, identifying three primary strain categories: failure to achieve positively valued goals, removal of positively valued stimuli (e.g., loss of relationships or resources), and exposure to negative stimuli (e.g., victimization or abuse).^[3]^[4] GST's core causal mechanism emphasizes emotional arousal over rational calculation, with anger serving as the most criminogenic response due to its association with aggressive impulses and reduced self-control, though individual differences in temperament, coping skills, and social support modulate outcomes.^[5] Empirical tests, including longitudinal studies and meta-analyses, have substantiated GST's predictive power, demonstrating that strains forecast self-reported delinquency and official crime records even after accounting for rival factors like low self-control or social bonds, particularly among adolescents facing interpersonal strains such as parental abuse or peer rejection.^[6]^[7] The theory has been extended to explain diverse phenomena beyond traditional delinquency, including white-collar offenses, intimate partner violence, and desistance from crime, with strains like workplace injustice or relationship dissolution linked to illicit adaptations.^[8]^[5] Despite its influence—evidenced by thousands of citations and integration into policy discussions on stress reduction in high-risk youth—GST faces critiques for its expansive definition of strain, which some argue risks tautology by retrofitting nearly any stressor as explanatory, complicating falsifiability and empirical precision.^[4]^[9] Agnew has addressed such concerns through refinements specifying strain types most likely to provoke crime (e.g., those seen as unjust or high in magnitude) and incorporating conditioning variables like criminal propensity, yet debates persist on whether GST overemphasizes subjective strains relative to objective structural factors or cultural variations in emotional responses to adversity.^[10] Overall, GST represents a resilient framework in contemporary criminology, bridging psychological and sociological insights to illuminate why only subsets of strained individuals resort to deviance, informed by causal pathways grounded in observable stressor-emotion-behavior sequences rather than unverified assumptions of universal goal consensus.^[11]

Theoretical Foundations

Historical Context of Strain Theories

Robert K. Merton formulated the foundational anomie-strain theory in his 1938 article "Social Structure and Anomie," arguing that deviance emerges from the disjunction between society's emphasis on culturally approved goals—primarily monetary success—and the unequal distribution of legitimate means to achieve them.^[12] Merton identified five adaptive modes to this strain: conformity, innovation (using illegitimate means for goals), ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion, with innovation particularly prevalent among lower-class individuals blocked from opportunities by structural barriers like limited education or employment access. This macro-level explanation rooted crime in societal pressures rather than individual pathology, drawing on Émile Durkheim's concept of anomie but specifying it through American cultural norms of achievement.^[13] Extensions of Merton's framework shifted focus to subcultural formations and opportunity structures. Albert K. Cohen's 1955 analysis in Delinquent Boys applied strain to juvenile delinquency, positing that working-class boys suffer "status frustration" in middle-class-dominated schools, where they fail to meet standards of achievement and propriety, prompting collective rejection and creation of inverted subcultures valuing non-utilitarian delinquency like vandalism.^[14] Similarly, Richard A. Cloward and Lloyd E. Ohlin's 1960 book Delinquency and Opportunity integrated differential opportunity theory, asserting that strain from blocked legitimate access combines with varying illegitimate opportunities to produce distinct gang types: criminal (organized theft), conflict (violent status-seeking), or retreatist (drug withdrawal), contingent on community resources.^[15] These developments emphasized class-based adaptations while retaining Merton's core goal-means imbalance. Classic strain theories declined in prominence during the 1970s and 1980s amid empirical critiques revealing inconsistencies, such as the theory's inability to predict white-collar or corporate crime among higher-status groups with abundant legitimate means, and its neglect of non-economic deviance like domestic violence or status offenses uncorrelated with economic aspirations.^[16] Longitudinal studies often found weak or null associations between measures of goal-blockage, socioeconomic deprivation, and overall delinquency rates, challenging the presumed causal primacy of structural strain. These limitations exposed the theories' overreliance on aggregate-level economic factors, underscoring gaps in addressing micro-level, interpersonal, or psychological strains experienced across social strata.^[17]

Agnew's Formulation and Evolution

Robert Agnew formulated General Strain Theory (GST) in his seminal 1992 article "Foundation for a General Strain Theory of Crime and Delinquency," published in Criminology (volume 30, issue 1, pages 47-87), addressing limitations in prior strain theories by redirecting focus from macro-structural imbalances—such as those between cultural goals and institutional means emphasized in Mertonian anomie—to micro-level strains encountered directly by individuals in their personal relations and circumstances.^[1] This shift posits that strains, as objective adversities disrupting homeostasis, generate motivational pressures toward deviance through innate human imperatives to restore equilibrium, with criminal responses arising not universally but contingently when legitimate alleviations are inaccessible or ineffective, reflecting variations in personal agency and situational constraints.^[18] Agnew's reasoning derives from first-principles observations of adaptive behaviors to stress, akin to stress process models in psychology, wherein individuals appraise threats subjectively and pursue relief strategies calibrated to perceived efficacy, thereby avoiding deterministic assumptions about criminal propensity.^[6] Agnew refined GST in his 2001 article "Building on the Foundation of General Strain Theory: Specifying the Types of Strain Most Likely to Lead to Crime and Delinquency," appearing in Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency (volume 38, issue 4, pages 319-361), by delineating attributes that amplify a strain's criminogenic potential, including perceptions of injustice, substantial magnitude, and limited individual control, which heighten the imperative for immediate, often illegitimate, remediation due to blocked adaptive pathways.^[19] These criteria underscore causal mechanisms rooted in realistic appraisals of adversity's controllability and fairness, where strains evoking helplessness or resentment disproportionately incentivize rule-breaking over prosocial alternatives, while resilient dispositions or supportive contexts mitigate such outcomes. Further evolution occurred in Agnew's 2006 book Pressured into Crime: An Overview of General Strain Theory (Roxbury Publishing), which integrated anticipated strains—future-oriented stressors like impending failures or threats—into the framework, recognizing that prospective adversities can preemptively disrupt equilibrium and prompt preemptive maladaptive coping, extending the theory's scope to proactive human responses to perceived trajectories of hardship. This incorporation maintains the theory's emphasis on subjective filtering of objective pressures, ensuring no blanket attribution of criminality to strain exposure alone, as individual differences in foresight, coping repertoires, and behavioral constraints determine whether deviance manifests.^[20]

Core Elements

Categories of Strain

In general strain theory, Robert Agnew specifies three principal categories of strain, informed by psychological literature on stressors that individuals seek to avoid or escape.^[1] These categories expand upon earlier strain formulations by incorporating a wider array of adverse experiences beyond goal blockage alone.^[21] The failure to achieve positively valued goals constitutes the first category, involving the inability to attain anticipated or desired outcomes such as financial stability, academic success, or interpersonal relationships like securing a marriage partner.^[1] ^[4] This extends classic strain theory's emphasis on economic aspirations to include diverse objectives, including autonomy or status attainment.^[21] The removal of positively valued stimuli forms the second category, encompassing the actual or anticipated loss of pleasurable or supportive elements, such as the death of a relative, dissolution of a romantic partnership, eviction from housing, or theft of valued possessions.^[1] ^[21] These events disrupt established routines and resources that buffer daily life.^[2] The presentation of negative or noxious stimuli defines the third category, referring to the imposition of aversive conditions like physical abuse, bullying, chronic interpersonal conflict, discrimination, or exposure to hazardous neighborhoods.^[1] ^[21] Research links such strains, particularly victimization experiences, to elevated vulnerability when social support networks are weak or absent.^[5] ^[2] This tripartite classification derives from stress process models in psychology, positing that strains most likely to provoke response are those high in magnitude, recent, or unjust, with low coping resources amplifying their impact.^[1] Its breadth enables GST to account for varied empirical stressors observed in delinquency studies, though it invites critique for potentially diluting specificity by including nearly any disvalued event or condition.^[21]

Negative Emotions and Mediating Factors

In general strain theory, strains are posited to generate negative emotional states, including anger, frustration, depression, and anxiety, which create pressure for corrective action and motivate individuals to engage in illegitimate coping strategies such as crime or delinquency. Among these emotions, anger holds particular prominence as the primary mediator linking strain to deviance, owing to its cognitive components of external blame attribution and impulses toward retaliation or aggression, distinguishing it from more internalized affects like depression that may prompt withdrawal rather than confrontation. The potency of negative emotions in prompting criminal responses is mediated and conditioned by individual, social, and situational factors that influence emotional arousal and coping options. Individual traits such as low self-control or temperamental irritability exacerbate the strain-emotion link by reducing tolerance for adversity and impairing adaptive responses, thereby heightening the likelihood of anger-driven deviance.^[22] Social conditioning variables, including inadequate conventional support networks or delinquent peer associations, further amplify mediation by limiting legitimate outlets and reinforcing illegitimate ones, while situational elements like the perceived injustice or acute magnitude of the strain intensify emotional reactivity—strains viewed as unfair or identity-threatening generate stronger anger than those deemed justifiable or minor.^[23] Empirical examinations, particularly in adolescent populations, indicate that anger and related negative affects partially mediate the relationship between strain and delinquent outcomes, though the extent varies by strain type and context. For instance, Aseltine et al. (2000) analyzed longitudinal data from over 1,300 high school students and found that anger mediated significant portions of the effects of life stressors (e.g., family conflict, negative life events) on delinquency, with standardized path coefficients showing anger accounting for up to 30% of the total strain-delinquency association in some models, while anxiety showed weaker mediation. Similarly, Moon et al. (2011) tested GST in a sample of 747 South Korean youth, confirming that trait-based negative emotions like anger mediated 20-25% of key strain effects on delinquency after controlling for conditioning factors such as coping resources.^[22] However, not all strains elicit crime-relevant emotions equally; chronic or anticipated strains may produce muted anger compared to acute, interpersonal ones, underscoring the theory's emphasis on emotional appraisal over strain exposure alone.^[24]^[25]

Pathways to Criminal Coping

In General Strain Theory, individuals confronted with strain and resultant negative emotions initially resort to legitimate coping mechanisms, such as behavioral adaptations to mitigate stressors (e.g., seeking employment to counter financial failure), cognitive techniques to reframe the strain, or emotional regulation strategies like exercise or social support-seeking.^[1] These approaches frequently prove effective, particularly when strains are acute or resources are adequate, thereby averting escalation to deviance. However, criminal coping emerges probabilistically when legitimate efforts falter amid chronic strains, depleted personal coping capacities (e.g., low self-efficacy or skills), or insufficient external buffers, positioning crime as a viable adaptive response that directly alleviates the strain—such as theft to rectify material deprivation or illicit drug use for escapist relief from ongoing victimization.^[6]^[26] The pathway to criminal coping is conditioned by situational and individual facilitators that render illegitimate options more salient and feasible. Association with deviant peers, for instance, provides encouragement, modeling, and reinforcement for criminal responses, transforming strain into shared justifications for delinquency.^[5] Similarly, environments characterized by low guardianship—such as minimal adult supervision or weak community oversight—diminish perceived risks of detection, while certain strains inherently generate deviant opportunities, like peer conflicts escalating in unsupervised settings that invite retaliatory violence.^[6] These elements interact with predispositions, including temperamental irritability or prior exposure to crime, to elevate the likelihood of selecting illegal over lawful avenues when prior coping proves inadequate.^[26] Critically, these pathways underscore a non-deterministic process, wherein the vast majority of strained individuals—such as crime victims or those facing economic setbacks—eschew criminality through resilient agency, bolstered social attachments, or alternative outlets that preserve conformity.^[5] For example, interpersonal victimization rarely precipitates retaliatory offenses among most affected parties, attributable to internalized norms, fear of consequences, or successful redirection of energies toward prosocial resolutions. This variability highlights how personal attributes and contextual restraints can interrupt the strain-to-crime sequence, even under comparable pressures.^[6]^[26]

Empirical Assessment

Supporting Evidence from Key Studies

A meta-review by Broidy and Agnew in 1997 synthesized early empirical data on general strain theory (GST), demonstrating that various strains, such as negative relationships with peers and adults, predict delinquency primarily through the mediation of anger, with effect sizes indicating stronger associations for anger than other emotions like depression. Their analysis of multiple datasets from the 1980s and 1990s showed that strains involving personal injury or loss were particularly potent predictors, supporting GST's emphasis on subjective appraisals of strain over objective measures alone.^[27] Piquero and Sealock's 2004 study of 306 juvenile offenders provided further evidence by testing GST's gender hypotheses, finding that males experienced higher levels of anger in response to strains like parental rejection and school failure compared to females, who reported more depressive symptoms; this emotional differential accounted for gender gaps in self-reported delinquency, with anger mediating the strain-offending link more robustly for males (beta coefficients around 0.20-0.30 in regression models).^[28] The study controlled for prior delinquency and self-control, affirming GST's predictive power beyond classical strain theories, which overlook emotional mediation.^[29] Longitudinal data from a South Florida youth cohort (tracked from adolescence into young adulthood, with waves circa 2000-2010) offered causal insights, revealing that increases in strains—such as economic hardship and victimization—predicted persistence in offending trajectories, while reductions in strain facilitated desistance; negative emotions like anger partially mediated these effects, with path analyses showing strains explaining up to 15-20% of variance in offending changes.^[30] This 2010 analysis of over 400 participants underscored GST's utility in dynamic processes, as strains temporally preceded escalations in property crimes and aggression.^[5] More recent integrations of GST with social control theory in juvenile delinquency research (2022-2024) have replicated these links using multivariate logistic models, where family and peer strains elevated odds of delinquency by 1.5-2.0 times after adjusting for controls like attachment and prior behavior; for instance, a 2024 study of institutionalized Chinese youth found abuse-related anger significantly associated with self-reported offenses (OR=1.72).^[31] Similarly, a 2025 examination of family strains among youth confirmed negative emotions as mediators, with strains outperforming socioeconomic status alone in predicting aggression and theft (ORs ranging 1.4-1.9).^[32] These findings highlight GST's replicability across contexts, particularly for property crimes where classical strain theories falter due to ignoring coping via illegitimate means driven by acute negative affect.^[33]

Challenges and Inconsistent Findings

One methodological challenge in testing general strain theory (GST) involves the reliance on retrospective self-reports to measure strains, which tend to overestimate their prevalence and universality across populations, as nearly all individuals report some form of strain in surveys, yet crime rates remain low.^[6] This approach introduces recall bias and subjectivity, complicating causal inferences about strain's role in offending. Additionally, the theory's broad conceptualization of strain—encompassing any perceived negative event or condition—has been criticized for vagueness, enabling post-hoc reinterpretation of diverse experiences as strains without falsifiability, as noted in Jensen's 1995 analysis arguing that such indeterminacy undermines the theory's structural predictions.^[4]^[19] Empirical inconsistencies arise in GST's predictive power for specific crime types, such as white-collar offenses, where strains like goal blockage or loss do not consistently differentiate offenders from non-offenders among those experiencing similar pressures, given the theory's origins in explaining lower-class delinquency rather than elite or occupational deviance.^[8] Furthermore, GST struggles to account for the majority of strained individuals who do not engage in crime; for instance, longitudinal studies indicate that over 80% of adolescents reporting strains like parental separation or academic failure desist from or never initiate delinquency, with the theory's emphasis on negative emotions like anger failing to fully mediate these outcomes without invoking ad hoc conditioning factors.^[7] Recent tests in the 2020s reveal mixed results for anger's mediating role between strain and criminal coping, with some studies finding only partial or context-dependent effects, such as weaker links in individualistic samples compared to potential stronger patterns in collectivist cultures where social strains may amplify emotional responses.^[34] Meta-analyses confirm overall modest associations but highlight variability across strain types and populations, underscoring unresolved gaps in explaining why equivalent strains yield divergent behavioral responses.^[7]^[35]

Applications and Extensions

Use in Explaining Terrorism

General strain theory (GST) has been adapted to account for terrorism by emphasizing collective strains—such as perceived injustices, relative deprivation, and group-based humiliations—that generate negative emotions like anger and moral outrage, prompting radical coping mechanisms including ideological violence. Robert Agnew's 2010 formulation posits that terrorism emerges when these strains are widespread, acute, and linked to blamed out-groups, with low legitimate coping options fostering deviant adaptations like joining terrorist networks. This extends GST beyond individual delinquency to macro-level phenomena, where strains mediate pathways from grievance to action, as evidenced in analyses of jihadist recruitment patterns post-9/11.^[36] Fathali Moghaddam's 2005 "staircase to terrorism" model incorporates strain-like escalations, portraying radicalization as a progressive ascent through psychological floors driven by cumulative strains, including perceived personal and group injustices on lower levels that erode trust in authorities and escalate to moral disengagement and violent commitment on upper floors.^[37] Lower-floor strains, such as economic marginalization and cultural humiliation, foster feelings of injustice that propel individuals toward radical groups offering identity and purpose, with empirical links in case studies of Palestinian and Islamist militants showing anger mediation in transitioning from passive discontent to active plotting.^[38] Extensions in the 2000s, including socio-economic strain models, apply GST to predict recruitment by highlighting how personal failures (e.g., unemployment) intersect with collective narratives of oppression, as tested in surveys of European radicalized youth where humiliation strains correlated with endorsement of violent ideologies (r ≈ 0.35–0.45).^[39] While GST illuminates individual-level drivers in terrorism, such as lone-actor cases where personal strains like family loss or discrimination directly fuel attacks (e.g., 2015 Charlie Hebdo perpetrators citing biographical humiliations), it fits less robustly for organized groups, where ideological indoctrination and network effects predominate over strain alone.^[40] Radicalization surveys, including those from deradicalized extremists, indicate strains act as facilitators—amplifying vulnerability in 60–70% of cases—but not sole causes, with ideological commitment often overriding coping alternatives absent group reinforcement.^[41] This suggests GST's utility in micro-processes of entry but requires integration with social learning for macro-terror dynamics.^[42]

Extensions to Other Deviant Behaviors

Research applying general strain theory (GST) to desistance and persistence in deviant behavior has shown that the resolution of strains contributes to aging out of crime among young adults. A 2010 study of young adult males found that decreases in strain exposure, particularly interpersonal strains like criminal victimization, predicted desistance from criminal activity, while persistent strains sustained involvement in deviance.^[30] This aligns with GST's emphasis on how reduced negative stimuli and improved coping resources diminish the incentive for deviant coping over time.^[5] Extensions of GST to emotional invalidation highlight its role as a chronic strain fostering non-criminal and criminal deviance. Emotional invalidation, defined as the dismissal or minimization of an individual's emotional experiences, integrates into GST by amplifying negative emotions like anger and depression, which mediate deviant responses. A 2024 theoretical integration posits that repeated invalidation creates ongoing strain, particularly in familial or relational contexts, leading to behaviors such as self-harm or aggression as maladaptive coping.^[43] Empirical tests support this, showing invalidation correlates with psychological distress and subsequent deviance beyond traditional strains.^[44] GST has been adapted to explain white-collar deviance, where anticipated strains—such as threats to professional status or financial security—prompt illegitimate coping. Preliminary analyses indicate that strains like job loss or reputational damage predict offenses including embezzlement, as individuals seek to restore equity through deviant means.^[45] Similarly, in cyber deviance, GST accounts for online harms like trolling or hacking, driven by strains such as cybervictimization or social isolation, with anger mediating engagement in digital misconduct. A 2024 study confirmed GST's applicability across genders, noting interpersonal cybercrimes are more strongly linked to specific strains and emotions like anger.^[46] Applications to ideological deviance, such as far-right extremism, demonstrate GST's versatility when combined with resilience factors. A 2022 analysis revealed that unmitigated strains from life experiences, exacerbated by online echo chambers, erode resilience and propel individuals toward extremist ideologies as a form of collective coping, with gender moderating the pathway.^[47] Recent hybrid models integrate GST with differential association theory to predict juvenile deviant outcomes, emphasizing interactive effects. A 2024 empirical test among youth found that strains interact with peer associations and low social control to elevate delinquency risks, supporting GST's extension through multifaceted causal pathways rather than standalone strain effects.^[48] These integrations underscore GST's adaptability to non-criminal deviance while grounding predictions in verifiable strain-emotion-coping sequences.

Criticisms and Alternative Perspectives

Theoretical Limitations

Critics of general strain theory (GST) contend that its expansive definition of strain—encompassing any event or condition perceived as adverse—renders the framework overly vague, allowing virtually any adversity to qualify and facilitating post-hoc explanations for deviance that diminish predictive utility and falsifiability. Jensen (1995), for instance, argued that this breadth permits nearly any factor or event to be retroactively classified as strain, echoing longstanding tautological concerns in earlier strain paradigms that Agnew sought to address but which persist in GST's application.^[4] GST further exhibits limitations in its handling of adaptive outcomes from strain, as it prioritizes pathways to negative emotions and deviance while insufficiently accounting for the empirical regularity with which strains engender positive adaptations like resilience and personal growth in the majority of individuals. Resilience research underscores that adversities frequently cultivate enhanced coping mechanisms and motivation, outcomes that GST incorporates as conditioning factors but fails to foreground as the dominant response, potentially overstating strain's criminogenic potential relative to character-building effects observed across populations.^[47] In juxtaposition with rational choice perspectives, GST underemphasizes individuals' prospective evaluations of coping options, framing responses primarily through emotional impulses rather than calculated assessments of risks, benefits, and alternatives. This orientation risks deterministic overreach by attributing criminal coping to strain-induced affect without integrating the deliberative processes central to rational choice models, where actors weigh situational costs against gains before deviant action.^[49]

Empirical and Methodological Critiques

Empirical tests of general strain theory (GST) have revealed inconsistencies in cross-cultural applications, particularly in societies with robust social institutions and lower baseline crime rates. A study using data from Ukraine, Greece, and Russia found that while strains were associated with negative emotions in some contexts, the predicted link to criminal coping was supported only in the Ukrainian sample, with mixed or null results in the Greek and Russian cases, suggesting GST's mechanisms may not generalize beyond high-strain environments.^[50] This limited portability challenges GST's universality, as stronger institutional buffers in low-crime nations—such as effective welfare systems or cultural norms emphasizing resilience—appear to attenuate strain effects without corresponding reductions in predicted deviance.^[51] Methodological issues, including endogeneity and measurement confounds, further undermine GST's causal claims. Cross-sectional designs common in GST research often fail to disentangle whether strains precede or result from criminal involvement, as delinquent behavior can generate subsequent strains like school failure or peer rejection, inflating apparent strain-crime associations.^[52] Moreover, self-reported strains frequently correlate with delinquency, but this relationship is confounded by low self-control, a core factor in Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime; individuals with poor self-regulation both encounter more strains (due to impulsive decisions) and respond maladaptively, rendering GST's unique contribution ambiguous when self-control is not adequately controlled.^[53] Critics argue this overlap indicates GST repackages self-control effects under a strain rubric rather than identifying independent pathways.^[54] At the macro level, GST struggles to account for temporal crime trends inconsistent with rising strains. In the United States, violent crime rates plummeted by over 50% from 1991 to 2000 amid persistent or increasing strains such as family disruption and economic inequality, contradicting GST's expectation of elevated deviance under heightened pressure.^[55] Similarly, the post-2008 crime decline occurred despite recession-induced strains like unemployment spikes exceeding 10% in 2009, highlighting GST's inability to predict aggregate desistance when alternative factors—such as improved policing or demographic shifts—dominate.^[55] These discrepancies, noted by scholars emphasizing stable individual traits over situational stressors, question overreliance on GST for explanatory power in dynamic contexts.^[54]

Oversights on Individual Agency and Broader Causality

General strain theory posits that criminal behavior arises primarily as a maladaptive response to experienced strains, thereby framing delinquency as a largely reactive outcome driven by external pressures rather than deliberate volition.^[21] This perspective risks diminishing the role of individual agency by externalizing causation to situational stressors, which can implicitly excuse offenders through an emphasis on mitigating strains over personal accountability. In contrast, rational choice frameworks and deterrence research underscore that potential offenders often engage in calculated decision-making, weighing perceived risks and moral inhibitions against immediate gains, with evidence indicating that increased certainty and celerity of punishment reduce crime rates by influencing such choices.^[56]^[57] GST's oversight extends to broader causal factors, particularly biological and neurodevelopmental influences that predispose individuals to antisocial responses independent of or interacting with strains. The theory largely omits genetic heritability, which meta-analyses of twin and adoption studies estimate accounts for approximately 50% of variance in antisocial behavior, suggesting innate traits like impulsivity or low empathy amplify vulnerability to deviant coping irrespective of strain exposure.^[58] Similarly, neuroscience evidence links traits such as executive function deficits—rooted in prefrontal cortex variations—to heightened reactivity to stressors, factors unintegrated into GST's strain-emotion-crime sequence despite their role in conditioning behavioral thresholds. Family socialization processes, including inconsistent parenting and early attachment disruptions, further contribute to self-regulatory deficits that GST underemphasizes, favoring environmental strains over these proximal developmental mechanisms.^[59] These omissions carry policy implications, as GST's strain-centric view may prioritize rehabilitative or structural interventions—such as alleviating socioeconomic pressures—over punitive strategies that reinforce accountability. Critics argue this could undermine deterrence-based approaches, evidenced by the "broken windows" model's application in New York City, where aggressive enforcement of minor disorders from 1994 onward correlated with a 50-70% drop in major crimes like homicide and robbery by 2000, attributable in part to signaling intolerance for lawbreaking. While left-leaning perspectives advocate strain reduction via social welfare to address root causes, right-leaning analyses emphasize individual responsibility, noting that overreliance on excusing models correlates with recidivism rates exceeding 60% in strain-focused programs lacking accountability components. Systematic reviews affirm that disorder-focused policing yields modest but consistent crime reductions, challenging GST-inspired shifts away from enforcement.^[60]^[61]

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The staircase to terrorism: a psychological exploration - PubMed
To foster a more in-depth understanding of the psychological processes leading to terrorism, the author conceptualizes the terrorist act as the final step ...
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[PDF] The Staircase to Terrorism - Fathali Moghaddam
(Cooper, 2001) and claims that “one per- son's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter,” there is general agreement that terrorism has be-.
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[PDF] Socio-Economic Strain as a Potential Source of Terrorism
In contrast to previous strain theories, General Strain Theory of Terrorism argues that the strains most likely to result in terrorism are collective strains ...
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Citizens, Extremists, Terrorists: Comparing Radicalized Individuals ...
Mar 6, 2025 · Over the past two decades, “radicalization” has become a core concept in research on how individuals turn to terrorism, ...
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[PDF] theoretical applications on terrorism outcomes - Scholars' Repository
Ultimately, this study found support for general strain theory and violent offending. Application of Criminological Theory to Terrorism. Social bond theory, ...
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[PDF] Radicalization into Violent Extremism I: A Review of Social Science ...
... terror- ism) is conceptual, rather than empirical.29 While the exact ... Gunning, "Social movement theory and the study of terrorism," in R. Jackson ...
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Emotional invalidation: an integration with Agnew's general strain ...
This paper integrates the concept of emotional invalidation into Robert Agnew's General Strain Theory (GST). It first discusses Agnew's central argument in ...
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Perceived Emotional Invalidation, Psychological Distress and ...
Sep 2, 2024 · Emotional invalidation: an integration with Agnew's general strain theory. Go to citationCrossrefGoogle Scholar. Figures and tables. Figures ...<|separator|>
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Can general strain theory explain white-collar crime? A preliminary ...
Can general strain theory explain white-collar crime? A preliminary investigation of the relationship between strain and select white-collar offenses. Author ...
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Cybercrime and Strain Theory: An Examination of Online Crime and ...
Sep 11, 2024 · While general strain theory (GST) correlates with cyber-offending for both males and females, we did find a few important differences. Except ...
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Full article: Strain theory, resilience, and far-right extremism
Feb 14, 2022 · In the General Strain Theory model, self-control and links with wider society are included as factors that will prevent a turn to crime. Thus, ...
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[PDF] Relation between the sense of strain, social control, differential ...
Dec 16, 2024 · Key words: General strain theory, strain theories, strain, juvenile ... differential association, and youth delinquency. The results of the ...
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Rational choice or strain? A criminological examination of contract ...
Feb 1, 2021 · ... and discuss whether rational choice theory (RCT) or general strain theory (GST) can contribute to understanding of its incidence and whether ...Missing: critique | Show results with:critique
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GENERAL STRAIN THEORY: ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE USING ...
Mar 2, 2009 · Results show more challenge than support for GST. In particular, all supportive results are for the Ukrainian sample with the Greek and Russian ...Missing: critiques | Show results with:critiques
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[PDF] General Strain Theory and Juvenile Delinquency: A Cross-Cultural ...
Jun 1, 2011 · After a review of this historical background, general strain theory will then be thoroughly explicated and its empirical evidence assessed ...<|control11|><|separator|>
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General strain and non-strain theories: A study of crime in emerging ...
Finally, researchers should employ longitudinal data so as to better determine the direction of causal influence between strains and crime (e.g. Jang & Rhodes, ...General Strain And... · Abstract · Introduction<|separator|>
[53]
STRAIN, SELF-CONTROL, AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ... - jstor
The general strain theory (GST), formulated by Agnew (1992) with the purpose of rejuvenating and modifying the classic strain/anomie theory of Robert Merton,.Missing: critiques | Show results with:critiques
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General Theory of Crime (Gottfredson & Hirschi) - SozTheo
Apr 24, 2019 · Gottfredson and Hirschi's General Theory of Crime aims to explain all forms of crime and deviant behavior through a single, unifying factor: ...
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[PDF] 11 Strain, Economic Status, and Crime - BMCC OpenLab
Oct 25, 2021 · The decline in crime since 2008, despite the severe economic recession. The crime drop occurred despite a sharp increase in unemployment, a ...<|separator|>
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Five Things About Deterrence | National Institute of Justice
the crime prevention effects of the threat of punishment — is a theory of choice in which individuals balance the benefits and ...
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[PDF] An Examination of Deterrence Theory: Where Do We Stand?
Dec 3, 2016 · The scientific evidence “leads to the conclusion there is a marginal deterrent effect for legal sanctions, but this conclusion must be swallowed ...
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The heritability of antisocial behavior: A meta-analysis of twin and ...
Approximately 50% of the variance in antisocial behavior is attributable to genetic effects, with medium to large effect sizes found.
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Genetic influences on antisocial behavior: recent advances and ...
Antisocial behavior is heritable, but heritability varies by subtype and age. Adversity predicts antisocial behavior directly and moderates genetic effects.
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[PDF] Disorder policing to reduce crime: An updated systematic review ...
The broken windows perspective posits that police can control more serious crimes when they focus on addressing underlying social and physical disorder problems ...<|control11|><|separator|>
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Why “Broken Windows” Policing is Still a Good Idea
again, when properly implemented. The data on the causal links between ...