Exposure to Neighborhood Violence and Delinquent Behavior: The Intervening Role of Adolescents' Future Self-Efficacy

Background: Cumulative environmental experiences shape how youth perceive their past, present, and future selves. Though conceptually distinct from the notion of the future self, young people’s future self-efficacy– defined as the extent to which adolescents perceive capability in achieving well-being for their future selves– also develops inextricably from environmental experiences of success or failure. Future self-efficacy, like future orientation, is undergirded by social cognitive processes that bear on young people’s identity through environmentally-based motivations and beliefs about what is possible in the future. Research suggests that youth exposed to neighborhood violence face chronic possibility of harm or death and that these experiences can facilitate truncated expectations of agency over the future. Limited research also links these experiences with youths’ acting with less regard for consequences, as manifest in delinquent choices, in reaction to truncated expectations of the future. This preliminary seeks to build upon this literature by exploring how adolescents’ witnessing of neighborhood violence may predict mild delinquent behavior directly and indirectly through their future self-efficacy.

Method: This study’s sample (N = 596) originates from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) and focuses on variables measured at PHDCN wave 3 when youth in the current sample were approximately 15 years old. Witnessing neighborhood violence was measured by two items from PHDCN’s My Exposure to Violence index assessing past-12-month frequency of witnessing assault or gunfire in their neighborhoods. Future self-efficacy was measured by a 5-item scale assessing youths’ self-reports of how much they agree that they hold agency over their future well-being (success, happiness, etc.). Delinquency was operationalized by five items from Achenbach and Rescorla’s (2001) Rule-Breaking Behavior syndrome subscale of the Youth Self-Report. A maximum likelihood full latent structural equation model was estimated using Amos software in SPSS. Four indices were used to evaluate model goodness-of-fit: chi-square statistic, Bentler Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), RMSEA confidence intervals, and standardized root-mean-square residual (RMR). 

Results: Overall model fit indices suggest adequate fit of the hypothesized model to the study’s data (CFI=.98; RMSEA=0.03; confidence interval, 0.00-0.06; c²=57.47). However, preliminary results suggest the model itself may not adequately explain individual relationships between model constructs. Estimated regression weights between the model’s specified latent constructs do not reach significance, suggesting poor structural fit between concepts of neighborhood violence, future self-efficacy, and delinquency. In other words, witnessing assault and gunfire within the neighborhood does not appear in this model to relate significantly to delinquent behavior directly or indirectly through adolescents’ future self-efficacy.

Conclusions: Future research should further specify the theoretical role of future self-efficacy as related to neighborhood violence exposure and delinquent behaviors. Though previous research suggests theoretical relationships, it may be beneficial for additional work to clarify the utility of future self-efficacy as opposed to other chronologically forward-facing concepts such as future orientation, perceived control, and future expectations. In exploring the theoretical rationale for testing such links again, attention might also focus on other less “clinical” rule-breaking behaviors such as adolescent substance use or risky sexual activity.