Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime (1990) has received a great deal of empirical examination in the criminology, yet the application of this theory to white-collar crime offenders has not received a great deal of attention. Research that has been conducted in the realm of white-collar crime has yielded mixed support for low self-control in explaining such offenses (Simpson and Piquero, 2002; Reed and Yeager, 1996; Langton et al., 2006; Blickle, 2006). The current study seeks to supplement the literature by focusing not simply on the direct causal links between self-control and white-collar offending, but also exploring how attitudes play a role between self-control and intentions to engage in white-collar crime. Specifically, this study examines whether attitudes towards environmental offending mediate and moderate the relationship between self-control and intentions to engage in environmental white-collar crime. The results indicated that attitudes toward environmental offending did have a mediating effect, but the effect of attitudes did not significantly vary as a function of self-control. Subsequently, simple slopes analysis found that the effect of attitudes was only significant among those with average and high levels of self-control. Implications for the general theory of crime and future directions for white-collar crime research are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USF/oai:scholarcommons.usf.edu:etd-5918 |
| Date | 01 January 2013 |
| Creators | Lugo, Melissa Anne |
| Publisher | Scholar Commons |
| Source Sets | University of South Flordia |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | default |
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