Morality

More Than “law-relevant Morality”? Rethinking Morality Within the Situational Action Theory

Bettina Doering, from the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony, made a contribution to the 2012 Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, in the category “Criminological Theory, Research and Education,” under the title “More Than “law-relevant Morality”? Rethinking Morality Within the Situational Action Theory”. Here is the abstract: The “Situational Action Theory” (SAT) introduced by Wikström and colleagues is the first criminological theory that proposes morality as a main influencing factor for delinquent behaviour. Although, there is empirical support for the assumptions of the SAT and particularly for the importance of morality, the present paper will critically examine the definition and operationalization of morality within the SAT. In the first part of the presentation, the conceptualisation of morality as “law-relevant morality” will be discussed from a theoretical perspective. In the second part, empirical data from a representative cross-sectional survey with children and adolescents from the fourth (N = 1223), seventh (N = 815) and ninth (N = 2.891) grade and longitudinal data (7th – 8th grade, N = 492) will be presented. Results suggest that morality is only important in predicting violent delinquent behaviour compared to vandalism or property crimes which questions the assumption of the SAT as a general theory of crime. In addition, no interaction between morality and self-control was found.[rtbs name=”criminology”]

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Further Reading

• “More Than “law-relevant Morality”? Rethinking Morality Within the Situational Action Theory”, by Bettina Doering (Proceedings)