Testing for Sex Moderation of the Moral Neutralization-Mediated Peer Influence Effect in Early Adolescent Youth

This study examines whether sex moderates the relationship between peer delinquency and participant delinquency as mediated by moral neutralization. Participants for this study were 2209 early adolescent youth (1053 boys and 1156 girls) from the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) study. In the current moderated mediation analysis, peer delinquency served as the independent variable, moral neutralization served as the mediating variable, delinquency variety served as the dependent variable, and sex acted as a moderating variable. Results showed that the peer influence effect (peer delinquency → moral neutralization → delinquency variety), while significant in both boys and girls, was stronger in girls than in boys. This provides further evidence that sex is capable of moderating important criminological relationships and that a fine-tuned analysis of crime and delinquency requires that we investigate potentially important sex differences in criminological constructs and the theories upon which they are based.