It would come as no surprise in the folklore of modern industrial society that 'partners in crime' were especially likely to be 'brothers in crime', or more generally siblings or members of the same family. Whether that is supported by careful analysis of appropriate data, or more precisely how and why this is true -- is the subject of this research project. Little is actually known in general about the mechanisms by which siblings come to resemble each other in delinquent behavior or about the dynamics of family processes that may lead to sibling resemblance. This will be the first large scale research into these mechanisms. The project will undertake a state-of-the-art analyses of a sample of 470 sibling pairs. The study will also take advantage of data from the National Youth Survey, perhaps the best dataset collected on the social-psychological determinants of delinquency. Under study will be the relative effects on a sibling's delinquent behavior (if any) of 1) parents' positive or negative concepts of each sibling (seen as getting along well with people or as a rule-breaker, for example), 2) the sibling's own concepts of themselves as viewed by significant others' (teachers', friends', the other sibling), 3) parental delinquent behaviors and 4) other sibling's delinquent behavior. The effects of the gender composition (both male, both female or mixed) of the sibling pair will also be studied. This research, undertaken by a promising young criminologist, will also break ground in the general study of sibling models and of the family 'inheritance' of other types of behaviors.
