ABSTRACT
Almost twenty years ago, Conger (1976) proposed that delinquent behavior could be explained, at least in part, by the multiple contingencies of reinforcement and punishment that characterize the social environments of children and adolescents. This perspective involves the application of social learning principles to the operation of multiple environmental influences, a view that can be linked to the Matching Law in operant psychology (Conger and Killeen 1974; McDowell 1988). Conger (1980) also suggested that individual differences in temperament and in the ability to process social information should influence the ways in which these environmental contingencies affect specific individuals. Accumulating empirical evidence and theoretical developments during the past fifteen years are consistent with these earlier ideas. In the present chapter, we first review several elements of contemporary thought regarding social deviance during childhood and adolescence. Based on this review, we then propose a revised explanatory model derived from a Matching Law approach to understanding the development of antisocial behavior. The chapter concludes by considering the empirical evidence 56for this perspective as well as future research that is needed to assess predictions from the model.
