RT Article
T1 Legal cynicism, but not depression, mediates the link between adverse environmental factors and youth’s political violence support
JF Psychology, crime & law
VO 28
IS 5
SP 470
OP 488
A1 Jahnke, Sara 1986-
A2 Koch, Tobias
A2 Goede, Laura-Romina
A2 Schröder, Carl Philipp
A2 Lehmann, Lena 1981-
A2 Beelmann, Andreas 1962-
LA English
YR 2022
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1806080109
AB The present work tests mediators of the link between adverse environmental factors and political violence support. Specifically, we investigated if depression and legal cynicism can mediate the association between lack of family cohesion, parental violence, and discrimination on one side and political violence support on the other side. Hypotheses were tested on a large and ethnically diverse dataset of German ninth graders, employing multi-group structural equation modeling. For both genders, we find that lack of family cohesion and parental violence were directly and/or indirectly related to political violence support. While legal cynicism mediated the link between lack of family cohesion and parental violence and political violence support, we found no moderating effect of depression in any of the tested models. These findings indicate that adolescents from dysfunctional families and with cynical attitudes towards legal norms may be at risk to endorse political violence. Prevention efforts that enhance family functioning, social-cognitive abilities, and the internalization of legal norms may deter youth from supporting political violence.
K1 Youth
K1 Depression
K1 political orientations
K1 Political Violence
K1 Radicalization
K1 Extremism
DO 10.1080/1068316X.2021.1909022