Secure Attachment Style In Neighborhood Disorder And Tendency To Commit Crime Among Undergraduates

Abstract

The study investigated the moderating role of secure attachment style in neighborhood disorder and tendency to commit crime among undergraduate of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Participants included 297 university students of psychology department. They included 66(22.2%) males and 229(77.1%) females, whose ages ranged between 17 to 43 years, with the mean age of 21.96 and standard deviation of 3.18. The Crime Behavior Rating Scale, Attachment Style Questionnaire, and perceived Neighborhood Disorder Scale were be used for data collection. The design of the study was moderated predictive design, while Process Macro Model 1 via SPSS (statistical package for social sciences) was used for data analysis. The result revealed that secure attachment style negatively and significantly predict tendency to commit crime, neighborhood disorder positively and significantly predict tendency to commit crime, and neighborhood disorder positively but not significantly moderated the relationship between secure attachment style and tendency to commit crime. It was recommended that parent and caregivers should adopt secure attachment style in raising their children to inculcate in them the ability to resist criminal thoughts.