Situational action theory: Cross-sectional and cross-lagged tests of its core propositions

Situational Action Theory (SAT) is a recently developed general action theory of crime that integrates and synthesizes existing individual and ecological explanations. SAT explicitly states that the individual’s propensity for criminal behaviour (morality and self-control) and exposure to criminogenic settings (rule breaking peers and time spent in unsupervised, unstructured activities) interact to determine whether a crime is committed. In the present article, core assumptions of SAT are tested by estimating cross-sectional and lagged models on two-wave panel data from adolescents in The Hague (The Netherlands). Generally, the findings support SAT, including the situational interaction between morality and self-control. However, the findings also raise questions about SAT. In particular, we did not find lagged effects of morality on later offending, and we found only a few significant interaction effects on offending between the two peer variables and morality and self-control. Generally, there was not much support for the SAT theory that adolescents with low morality or low self-control are more vulnerable to (situational) peer influences. The article concludes with a discussion of how additional situational peer variables may be included in SAT.