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McGuire
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Psych Professor Wins Big Grant from NIMH for Delinquency Study
Hoping to pinpoint the factors contributing to juvenile delinquency, Assistant Professor of Psychology Shirley McGuire received nearly $800,000 from the National Institute of Mental Health for the first part of a nine-year study of sibling behavior.
Such a large amount of discretionary money is rarely granted by the NIMH, McGuire said. The institute probably targeted her study because it could possibly save taxpayers millions in clean-up and police time by identifying why juveniles commit petty crimes like graffiti and shoplifting, she said.
McGuire will study whether children of about the same age are influenced by their siblings as much or more than they are by their friends. “We already know it happens with best friends,” McGuire said. “Now we want to know the similarities and differences with siblings and twins.”
McGuire’s research team will interview the children in person and by phone, and also videotape them playing various competitive games. The games are based on elements of game theory, an economic model for predicting when people will cooperate together, to assess when and why siblings work together. The study is at the forefront in combining social learning theory and elements of behavioral economics, a burgeoning area of psychological study and probably another reason why the NIMH has financed the study, she said.
McGuire, who has studied sibling behavior for the last decade, said she and colleague Nancy Segal at California State University, Fullerton will be studying 342 twin and best-friend pairs, between 8 and 11 years of age. They will restudy their subjects in three years, between the ages of 11 and 14, and again in three more years, when they are between 14 and 17.
The study will also assess how much respect plays a part between siblings who teach each other delinquent behavior. McGuire said her previous research has shown siblings generally act differently from each other. In delinquency, however, their behavior patterns tend to be similar. The question is whether children copy their brothers or sisters because they like them or whether they imitate their bad behavior because they admire them.
“What we’re trying to find is under what circumstances do you act like friends even though your relationship may still contain conflict,” McGuire said.
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