An Evolutionary Criminology Approach Joseph L
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2013 The Influence of Antisocial Behavior on the Life Course: An Evolutionary Criminology Approach Joseph L. Nedelec Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE THE INFLUENCE OF ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR ON THE LIFE COURSE: AN EVOLUTIONARY CRIMINOLOGY APPROACH By JOSEPH L. NEDELEC A Dissertation submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2013 Joseph L. Nedelec defended this dissertation on June 14, 2013. The members of the supervisory committee were: Kevin M. Beaver Professor Directing Dissertation Lisa A. Eckel University Representative Eric P. Baumer Committee Member Eric A. Stewart Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii I dedicate this dissertation to my father, George J. Nedelec. It is my most sincere wish that he would have lived to hear his ‘number two and a half son’ be called “Dr. Nedelec”. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to first acknowledge my supervisor and mentor, Dr. Kevin Beaver. Without Dr. Beaver’s guidance, support, encouragement, and honesty this project would never exist and my time in graduate school would have ended long ago. From the moment I arrived at Florida State, Dr. Beaver has supported my advancement as a scholar. Consistently, Dr. Beaver has exemplified that for which a scientist, an educator, a mentor, and a human being should strive. He has sacrificed his time, energy, involvement with family, and more to see that I succeed. Owing solely to his tutelage, I am certain that my experience in graduate school is qualitatively and quantitatively advantageous relative to those who did not work with Dr. Beaver. It is with overwhelming gratitude that I am thankful for the unimaginable benefit I have been provided in working with such an eminent scholar and person. It has been an absolute privilege to work as Dr. Beaver’s student, and I have no delusions about the improbability of the future I now have had I been without his guidance and support. I would also like to acknowledge my dissertation committee. Dr. Eric Baumer, Dr. Eric Stewart, and Dr. Lisa Eckel have been exemplary scholars, and their comments on earlier drafts of this project were immensely valuable. It is with abundant delight that I am able to include such recognizable and influential names on the second page of this project. My pure selfishness received considerable satisfaction with their inclusion in my committee and I am exceedingly grateful for their support and guidance. All three of you have my most sincere thanks, respect, and admiration. In the same vein, I wish to thank and acknowledge my past supervisors and committee members for my honor’s thesis, my Master’s thesis, and those who have been kind enough to write letters of recommendation on my behalf for graduate school and employment. My thanks to Dr. Gail Anderson, Dr. William Bales, Dr. Ehor Boyanowsky, Professor Neil Boyd, Mr. Scott Cobbe, Dr. Matt Eichor, Professor H. Martin Jayne, Dr. Bryan Kinney, and Professor Neil Madu. Each of you has provided me with tremendous help in the years leading up to this accomplishment. iv I would like to acknowledge my fellow FSU criminology doctoral students with whom I have shared many great experiences and formed numerous valuable friendships. Particular recognition should be given to Joseph Schwartz and Eric Connolly, both of whom provided instrumental support and friendship. It was an incredible twist of fate that allowed me to work with these two soon-to-be superstars of criminology; I have gleaned far more from them than they ever received in return. As a criminologist, I have been exposed to mountains of research illustrating the horrible familial circumstances through which many people have lived. With such a contextual perspective, I am unable to imagine how my own familial situation could have been any better than it was. As such, I wish to acknowledge and thank my mother, Judy Brummund and my father, George J. Nedelec, for their unwavering love, encouragement, and support as I continually exploited their every resource to advance my own life (to use the vernacular of evolutionary biology). I want to thank all five of my siblings for their support in the past and the guidance and praise they continue to provide today. What an extraordinary benefit it was for my life to be surrounded by these incredible individuals possessing such a rich love of life, adventure, and knowledge. I have missed all of you dearly while completing my graduate education so far from home. My younger sister, Suzanne, deserves specific praise and recognition. However, sibling rivalry prevents me from providing it in print. I have been blessed with a large extended family from whom I was given incalculable love and support and who I am sure will be happy to see that I finished my schooling before retirement age. Finally, I wish to thank my wife’s family who welcomed a hockey-loving Canuck into their family of Cardinals and Saints fans. My father-in law and mother-in law have been particularly gracious in their willingness to accept me into their family. Their continued love and support is a constant humbling experience for which I am overwhelmingly grateful. My final acknowledgement goes to my wife, Amanda. Her love, friendship, and smile have allowed me to carry on through more days than I care to admit. With selfless abandon she left an incredible job, her friends, and her family to accompany me to Tallahassee. With continued selflessness she never, not even once in four years, got upset with me for having to work on research, course work, or my dissertation. Now that it is all over, I am asking her to once again abandon what she has acquired in her life as my career advances. Her sacrifices are v incredible and her reward miniscule. To be sure, without her support this project would not have been completed, and without her presence in my life my purpose would be deficient and my laughter diminished. Trying to put into words the gratitude for a lifetime filled with supportive family, friends, colleagues, teachers, and mentors is a futile task of despicable insufficiency. I wish to thank each and every person who has helped me, in one way or another, to achieve the accomplishment that accompanies this project. However, it is impossible to list everyone and those who are listed have not been given the appropriate praise and recognition that they so richly deserve. This list is therefore incomplete and unsatisfactory, as my level of gratitude is beyond adequate expression. --- This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................... xi LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ xiii ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................xiv CHAPTER 1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM ......................................................................1 1.1 Antisocial Conduct and Sexual Behaviors: A Quagmire ....................................................3 1.2 Research Questions ...........................................................................................................7 1.3 Contributions of the Current Study ....................................................................................9 1.4 Outline ............................................................................................................................ 12 CHAPTER 2 EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE HISTORY THEORY .............. 17 2.1 Evolutionary Psychology ................................................................................................ 19 2.1.1 Evolutionary Biology: An Introduction..................................................................... 20 2.1.2 Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology ........................ 22 2.1.3 Sexual Behaviors, Delinquency, and Evolutionary Psychology ................................. 24 2.1.4 Evolutionary Psychology in Criminology ................................................................. 25 2.2 Life History Theory ........................................................................................................ 26 2.2.1 Empirical Research on Life History Theory .............................................................