The Goldilocks Rule-Too Little, Too Much, and "Just Right": Curvilinear Effects of Sleep Duration on Delinquency

Studies increasingly highlight that poor sleep is associated with harmful health and behavioral outcomes, including delinquency. Theory and research suggest that sleep effects may be curvilinear and greater for some groups, but this idea remains largely unexamined in studies of adolescent offending. Drawing on prior scholarship and regression analyses of National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health data, we test the "Goldilocks hypothesis" that too little sleep or too much sleep will be positively associated with delinquency. We also test the argument that the effect will be amplified among groups for whom optimal sleep may be especially important. Results suggest support for the main hypothesis, but indicate that sleep duration appears to exert a similar effect on females and males, while, unexpectedly, it appears to exert a stronger rather than smaller effect for whites and high socioeconomic status youth. Implications for theory and research on delinquency are discussed.