From Context to Perception to Behavior: Predicting Delinquency With the Parental Support-Perceived Parental Competence Cross-Lag

The goal of this study was to determine the significance of variable order when it comes to using child and parent reports of parental support to predict delinquency. It was hypothesized that a social context variable (parental support as rated by the parent) would precede a perceptual variable (perceived parental support competence as rated by the child) in predicting delinquency, but a perceptual variable preceding social context would not. This hypothesis, based, in part, on social cognitive theory, was tested in a sample of 3,490 adolescent Australian youth (1,742 boys, 1,690 girls) using a three-wave path analysis. As predicted, the parental support to perceived parental support competence sequence led to delinquency, but the perceived parental support competence to parental support sequence was non-significant. These results indicate that a social context variable is capable of affecting behavior indirectly, in this case, by shaping the affected child’s perception of the social context.