Strain, negative emotions, and deviant coping among African Americans: A test of general strain theory

Although previous research on Agnew's (1992) general strain theory (GST) tends to yield significant effect of train on negative emotions as well a deviance and crime, result tend to be mixed with regard to (1) the effects of negative emotions on deviance and crime and (2) conditioning factors that Agnew suggests affect the selection of coping strategies. To address these issues, we test hypotheses, derived from GST, about the relationship among train, negative emotions, and deviant coping by analyzing data from a nationally representative sample of African American adults. Ordinary least squares regression result generally support our hypotheses. First, fully mediating the effects of strain on deviant coping, negative emotion have consistently significant effects on deviance, regardless of whether we use composite or separate measures of inner- and outer-directed emotions and deviance. Interestingly, as hypothesized, the same-directed effects of negative emotion on deviant coping are larger than the opposite-directed ones. Second, while self-esteem and self-efficacy as conditioning factors generally fail to receive empirical support, religiosity is found to significantly buffer the effects of negative emotion on deviance. Implication of our findings for further development of GST are discussed.