Do stress and strain lead to deviant behavior?
Their study looked at the extent to which groups such as families influence younger people to start gambling or use specific substances as coping strategies. It formed part of investigations into the phenomenon of gambling and substance use in terms of the General Strai n Theory. It holds that deviant behavior is the result of how people adapt to specific strains (financial difficulties, death in the family) and the negative emotions (depression, anxiety or anger) that go with it. It follows that people try to handle their inner turmoil by engaging in deviant behaviour such as substance use or gambling. Altogether 262 families totalling 2,248 participants aged between 12 and 91 years old filled in self-administered questionnaires about their backgrounds and the type of strains they had experienced in the preceding three months. These ranged from being victimized to having issues at work with the police, their health or their families. Respondents indicated the negative emotions (a...