Structural Model Of Delinquent Behavior Influencing by Media Violence

Kim, Hyun Sil

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test the theoretical model designed to explain juvenile delinquency by media violence. Data were collected through questionnaire survey over a period of 3 months. Subjects served for this study consisted of 537 adolescents including 217 delinquent adolescents and 320 student adolescents in Korea, sampled from Korean student population and delinquent adolescent population confined in juvenile correctional institutions, using proportional stratified random sampling method. In this study, exogeneous variable was family dynamic environment and endogeneous variables were character of adolescent including need satisfaction/ frustration, sociability, antisocial personality tendency, complaints of psychosomatic symptoms and depressive trend, juvenile delinquent behavior and media violence themes including the extent of interest in and exposure and modelling impulsiveness and modelling to media violence themes. A total of 18 instruments were used to operationalized concepts in this model. A validation study indicated that internal consistencies for the 18 instruments which the researcher used were reliable. The one month test-retest correlation for these instruments ranged from 0.54 to 0.88. Statistical methods employed were descriptive statistics and covariance structural modelling. In summarized conclusion, it was found that media violence served as the most contributor to juvenile delinquency by direct effect of 0.64(t=10.18). That is, as the adolescents have to be the higher extent of interest in and exposure and modelling impulsiveness and modelling to media violence themes, they will show the more frequency of delinquent behavior. The single most powerful contributor by total effect of 0.73(t=7.90) (direct effect=0.19, indirect effect=0.54) to the development of delinquent behavior identified in this study was a construct defining family dynamic environment. That is, as the adolescents had to be more unstable family dynamic environment, they became more frustrated to their psychological need, and revealed the more maladaptive personality pattern, consequently they behaved the higher misconducts such as juvenile delinquency through media violence.