Love Deprivation, Wechsler Performance Greater Than Verbal Discrepancy, and Violent Delinquency

• NCJ Number: 108468
• Journal: Journal of Psychology Volume: 121 Issue: 2 Dated: (March 1987) Pages: 177-184
• Author(s): A Walsh; J A Beyer; T A Petee
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 8 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined the relationship between love deprivation and the discrepancy between performance and verbal IQ (PVD) on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children in data for 265 male juvenile delinquents.

Abstract

Love deprivation and PVD were significantly related to violent delinquency, even with race and social factors (two variables often closely associated with delinquency) controlled. Love deprivation had a stronger impact on violent delinquency than any of the other variables often implicated in the etiology of violent delinquency. Love deprivation was also strongly related to PVD. It is suggested that high performance IQ relative to verbal IQ scores may be a function of a lack of disruption in the short-term memory mechanisms of high PVD subjects, that this nondisruption is a function of a hyporeactive autonomic nervous system, and that this hyporeactivity could itself be a function of early parental/love deprivation. 1 table and 46 references. (Author abstract modified)