Re-Examining of Moffitt’s Theory of Delinquency through Agent Based Modeling

Moffitt’s theory of delinquency suggests that at-risk youths can be divided into two groups, the adolescence- limited group and the life-course-persistent group, predetermined at a young age, and social interactions between these two groups become important during the adolescent years. We built an a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Leaw, Jia Ning, Chan, Wei Teng, Cheong, Siew Ann, Ang, Rebecca Pei-Hui, Huan, Vivien Swee Leng
Other Authors: Hayasaka, Satoru
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2015
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/103059
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/38704
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:Moffitt’s theory of delinquency suggests that at-risk youths can be divided into two groups, the adolescence- limited group and the life-course-persistent group, predetermined at a young age, and social interactions between these two groups become important during the adolescent years. We built an agent-based model based on the microscopic interactions Moffitt described: (i) a maturity gap that dictates (ii) the cost and reward of antisocial behavior, and (iii) agents imitating the antisocial behaviors of others more successful than themselves, to find indeed the two groups emerging in our simulations. Moreover, through an intervention simulation where we moved selected agents from one social network to another, we also found that the social network plays an important role in shaping the life course outcome.