Peer review

Example of a peer review assignment and do not circulate

Reviewer 1

Grounded in Agnew’s GST, the paper explores the relative impact of subjective and objective

strains on general delinquency utilizing a sample of Korean youth. It also examines the

mediating impact of two negative emotions as well as the conditioning influence of a composite

measure of risk factors. The results suggest that objectives strains tend to be more important that

subjective strains, negative emotions do not mediate the impact of strain, and that the composite

measure of risk factors does condition the impact of both strains and emotions. Much of the

analysis reproduces work that has already been undertaken. The potential contribution lies in the

composite conditioning factor where little work has been undertaken. Saying this, the author

should consider the following to help and improve the manuscript.

1. In the author’s review of conditioning factors, there are a number that seem to be missing or

perhaps are not specified in great enough detail. These might include self-esteem, self-efficacy,

attributions, negative emotionality/low constraint, and values supportive of criminal coping.

2. There needs to be more of a review of the work on the situational based emotions and their

direct and mediating impact. The author only reviews on of the studies.

3. The author notes that Agnew argues that conditioning factors influence the impact of emotions

on crime. This needs to be played up more since little work has explored this type of relationship.

Further, an actual review of the research that has explored this should be undertaken to better

place the current research within the broader literature.

4. The author also needs to be more comprehensive in their review of the conditioning factors

that have been found to moderate the impact of strain. The current review is cursory at best and

seems to be skewed towards those from which their measure is built.

5. The author needs to provide an appendix that includes a summery of all of the items that make

up the measures. It is difficult to determine what is in each measure.

6. It is unclear how subjective strain was measured. Were the respondents asked about each item

that made up each scale, or were they asked to respond to a more global item about each broader

form of strain? This needs to be more clearly specified.

7. The above comment is also applicable to the emotion measure. Were the respondents asked 3

questions about each item that made up each scale, or were they asked to respond to a more

global item about each broader form of strain?

8. Note that there are 5 strains (page 14) not 7.

9. The choice of some of the conditioning factors seems potentially problematic. It is unclear

why a legitimacy of violence measure was chosen when violent items appear to make up only a

small number of the offenses in the dependent variable. More needs to be said here to rationalize

the choice of this measure.

10. A similar issue arises with the delinquent peer measure. There are no items focusing on

property offending, yet these items appear in the dependent variable. The disconnected between

the items in the peer and values and the dependent variable needs more discussion.

11. The author finds little support for role of negative emotions in the initial analysis. This may

be the result of different emotions being linked to different outcomes. The author outlines that

anger should be related to violence and depression to more self-directing behaviors. A composite

dependent variable combining the two different types of offenses as well as property crimes

potentially undermines the predictive ability of the emotion variables. Perhaps the author should

undertake additional analysis with more offense specific dependent measures.

12. The material presented in table 4 could be improved with additional analysis. It could begin

with a number of more preliminary models. For example, the type of analysis in table 3

exploring the relative effects of objective and subjective strain could be undertaken here and

since anger is a significant predictor in a number of models an earlier model examining the

mediating effects of emotions is also required.

13. More needs to be said in the discussion section about the composite conditioning variable

and the items that comprise it. It is an issue to include items that are not important as separate

measures. Should only those items that are strong predictors at the disaggregated level be

included? Did the author do additional analysis to explore of the relationships were stronger

without the weak items?

14. In the discussion section the author needs to acknowledge the need for a better composite

conditioning variable that includes a full range of the factors that Agnew identified, including

negative emotionality/low constraint.

Reviewer 2

This study examines the effect of objective and subjective strains on delinquency, the mediating

role of situation-based negative emotions between strains and delinquency, and the moderating

effect of composite factors on the strain-delinquency relationship among Korean adolescents.

The study tests some of the major propositions in General Strain Theory (GST) and is one of the

few studies on objective vs. subject strains in a cross-cultural setting. Here are some points the

author(s) may consider to address to improve the paper.

1. It seems the most important contribution of the paper to the existing literature on GST is to

test the variations between objective vs. subjective strains and their effects on delinquency

among Korean adolescents. However, the author(s) didn’t show enough emphasis on the point

throughout the paper. Here are some suggestions for the author(s) to consider:

(1) In discussion of major propositions in GST, a more detailed description of objective vs.

subjective strains may be needed.

(2) In discussion of relevance of GST to Korean adolescents, both objective strains and

subjective (negativity) evaluations of these strains should be discussed.

(3) In discussion of the present study, the author(s) may develop specific hypotheses to be tested,

using the propositions in GST as theoretical guidelines. (e.g., subjective strains have stronger

effects on delinquency than objective strains; subjective strains more likely lead to negative

emotions than objective strains, etc.)

(4) In discussion of zero-order correlations, the author(s) may discuss some significant

differences on negative emotions between objective and subjective strains (e.g., subjective

gender discrimination is strongly correlated to negative emotions, while objective criminal

victimization has a stronger correlation to negative emotions). Significant correlation coefficients

at .01 level should be added in the table.

2. The “unexpected” results of subjective strains might be due to the data distribution and

methodology used in the test. To examine the effect of subjective strains, the author(s) may look

at the distribution of scores and make sure there is a sufficient number of respondents

experienced the strain and there is substantial variation in the subjective reaction to these strains.

Here is a good article to look at: Froggio, G., & Agnew, R. (2007). The relationship between

crime and “objective” versus “subjective” strains. Journal of Criminal Justice, 35, 81–87.

3. Some editorial changes:

(1) Title should include a test among Korean Youth.

(2) Change “deviant behavior” to “criminal/delinquent behavior” throughout the text.

(3) Clarify “gender discrimination” question (discriminated against because of being male or

female?).

Also include the gender statistics in the sample description.