Question

Calculate the predicted self-control score for a person living in a good neighborhood who is 18 years old, male, who scores a 12 on parental supervision, a 15 on parental responsiveness, a 10 on school socialization, and whose mother smoked during pregnancy.  Then, calculate the self-control score for a person living in a good neighborhood who is 21 years old, female, who scores an 8 on parental supervision, a 10 on parental responsiveness, a 6 on school socialization, and whose mother smoked during pregnancy.  If having low self-control is a significant predictor of delinquency, which individual (#1 or #2) would be more at risk of engaging in delinquency?

Table 1 below provides slopes, standard errors, and betas for several variables used to predict levels of self-control (higher scores = lower self-control) for respondents living in “good” and “bad” neighborhoods.

Table 1.  OLS Regression Predicting Low Self-Control Across Neighborhood Type
	Good Neighborhoods (n = 356)			Bad Neighborhoods (n = 186)
Measure	B	SE	Beta	B	SE	Beta
Age (in Years)	-.215*	.094	-.117	.107	.160	.050
Sex (1 = Males)	.699**	.224	.160	.129	.361	.026
Race (1 = Whites)	.059	.261	.012	-.499	.382	-.101
Parental Supervision (Higher = More Supervision)	-.277**	.023	-.063	-.026	.364	-.005
Parental Responsiveness (Higher = More Responsive)	-.098**	.032	.161	.096	.058	.228
School Socialization (Higher = More Socialization)	-.249**	.085	-.154	-.042	.112	-.027
Maternal Smoking (1 = Smoked During Pregnancy)	.580*	.277	.109	1.02**	.388	.193
Constant	6.105	1.750		.460	2.620
R2	.313			.273

* p < .05; ** p < .01

Show work please!

Answer 1

The fitted regression model for predicting Self-control scores can be expressed as:

For a person living in a good neighborhood:

#1The predicted self-control score for a person living in a good neighborhood who is 18 years old, male, who scores a 12 on parental supervision, a 15 on parental responsiveness, a 10 on school socialization, and whose mother smoked during pregnancy

= -3.77

#2The self-control score for a person living in a good neighborhood who is 21 years old, female, who scores an 8 on parental supervision, a 10 on parental responsiveness, a 6 on school socialization, and whose mother smoked during pregnancy

= -2.52

We know, from prior studies that Self-control is a significant predictor of delinquency and both are negatively correlated - Lower self-control leads to higher rates of delinquency.

Hence, the person having lower self-control score would be more at risk of engaging in delinquency, here, that would be person #1.

Person #1, would be more at risk of engaging in delinquency.