CHILDHOOD TRAUMA, RESILIENCE AND LOCUS OF CONTROL AS PREDICTORS OF DEVIANT BEHAVIOURS AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 INTRODUCTION

Our focus in this chapter is to critically examine relevant literature that would assist in explaining the research problem and furthermore recognize the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps.

2.1 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

CHILD TRAUMA

. Trauma is defined as a real or intimidating encounter with the threat of death, serious injury or sexual assault (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Child abuse and neglect that are all actions or inaction of the adults towards the child, taken into consideration within the concept of trauma, are viewed as inappropriate and harmful by social rules and experts due to causing damage to various stages of child’s development and endangering health and safety (Taner & Gökler, 2004). Child abuse and neglect are handled in a wide range of developmental, medical, social, psychological and legal dimensions (Polat, 2001). Child abuse and neglect, based on definitions, is classified as physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and neglect. Physical abuse includes behavior such as beating with or without an object, burning, biting and shaking, and forcing a caustic substance to eat; emotional abuse refers to behaviors such as humiliation, mocking, threatening while neglect indicates that the basic needs of the child are not met (Moeller, Bachmann & Moeller, 1993; Şahin, 2009). Sexual abuse is the use of the child for sexual satisfaction by an adult or another child to whom the child is related in terms of responsibility, care and power because of his or her age and development (Dağlı & İnanıcı, 2010). Childhood abuse and neglect, which constitutes the most important among traumatic experiences, causes more destructive effects than negative experiences such as natural disasters and fire (Lancaster, Melka & Rodrigez, 2009; Şar, 2009). When this situation is evaluated in terms of age, while traumatic experiences cause corrosion for adults on their personalities as their personality is already shaped, repetitive trauma exposure in childhood shapes and distorts the child’s personality. The child who is in this state tries to experience some circumstances such as trust, power and control (Herman, 2015). Thus, such traumatic experiences in childhood are constantly processed by being on the agenda of the child and carried to adult life (Şar & Öztürk, 2007).

RESILLIENCE

Psychological resilience is defined as a dynamic process in which individuals adapt healthily despite experiencing severe difficulties or trauma (Luthar, Cicchetti & Becker, 2000). Resilience has been defined as recovery after exposure to a serious challenge or threat (Masten, 2001) and healthy fit (Cutuli & Masten, 2009). As it is seen, definitions on psychological resilience indicate the ability to maintain a high level of psychological function and to adapt healthily after being exposed to trauma or serious stress (Bonanno, Westphal & Mancini, 2011; Southwick, Charney, Friedman & Litz, 2011). Accordingly, resilience is not just the absence of psychopathology after these events. Resilience is a broad concept that includes the ability to survive or recover from heavy challenges to resist them. In human development, Cutuli and Masten (2009) stated that resilience research focuses on three different situations: a. functioning well during severe difficulties (resilience to stress) b. returning to previous levels of good functioning after traumatic or seriously destructive experiences (recovery) and c. demonstrating normal compliance when there is improvement in severe difficulties (normalization).

Individuals’ potentials, strengths, internal resources, emotional self-efficacy and positive characteristics are outstanding features to understand resilience. Heller et al. (1999) reviewed the current research literature on the resistance to maltreatment in childhood and adolescence in their study and they stated individuals whose psychological resilience is high also have above-average cognitive abilities, high self-esteem, inner locus of control, external attribution to blame, presence of spirituality, ego resilience and high ego control. One of the comprehensive studies on psychological resilience is the longitudinal study of Werner and Smith (1982), which was based on the observation technique and conducted with more than 200 children living on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. The study indicated that approximately one third of the children were self-sufficient, caring and self-confident. Garmezy (1993) described a number of personal traits that affect resilience in a study of youth with poverty. These features are high social skills, positive peer and adult interaction, high social responsiveness and sensitivity, intelligence, empathy, humor ability, high self-esteem, inner locus of control and critical problem-solving skills. The socio-demographic environment in childhood can pose risks in many ways. For example, the fact that children living in poor regions are academically sound may lead to a disadvantage in terms of language and literacy. The psychosocial strength of children and their attachment to their parents with stronger ties are important predictors of children’s language learning and literacy skills (Maier, Vitiello & Greenfield, 2012). It is possible that children who cannot establish a safe connection with their parents during childhood and experience problematic behaviors by their parents will have difficulties in school life. On the other hand, there are significant positive relationships between the language and literacy skills of children who display positive behavioral, emotional and social attitudes (Peth-Pierce, 2000). In addition, there may be measurable effects on the cognitive functions of children who have not received sufficient cognitive stimuli, neglected and abused. Indeed, the low reading and spelling performance of children is a finding that reflects it (Rees, 2013). Along with the contribution of being psychosocially strong to the academic and literacy dimensions, psychological resilience is also addressed in terms of emotional literacy. Emotional literacy includes skills that include awareness, naming, meaning, and reaction of emotions (Pearson & Wilson, 2008). With the development of both academic and emotional literacy skills, it can be ensured that children are more resilient at a later age. In this regard, the environment in which children are raised and their experiences in childhood become prominent. In psychological resilience studies, the factors affecting the development of psychological resilience have been tried to be determined and revealed and these factors have been named as “protective factors”. Protective factors define situations that reduce or eliminate the impact of risk or difficulty and improve healthy compliance and individual competencies (Masten, 1994). In a study by Werner and Smith (1982), personal qualities and behaviors such as docile temperament, high intelligence, inner locus of control, high self-esteem and strong self-efficacy were defined as protective factors contributing to the development of resilience, even if they are not essential.

Resilience is not a general structure for all life areas, but it is rather a personal, cultural, dynamic, and background-dependent phenomenon. People may not demonstrate resilience to all life events or aspects but only to specific situations. That is, people may be resilient to specific threats and vulnerable to others (Tusaie& Dyer 2004). In addition, some sources of resilience are only achievable in specific contexts; which means it is a way of interaction between stressors, context, and personal traits (McAllister&Mckinnin 2009). For example, resilient individuals may encounter harmful situations, but they do not suffer interruption of their life order.

Locus of Control

Over several decades, psychological research has focused on locus of control (LOC), which is a personality trait that represents the extent to which people believe that the rewards they receive in life can be controlled by their own personal actions (Lefcourt, 1984; Rotter, 1966). Van der Sluis, Van Praag and Van Witteloostuijn (2004) describe WLOC in relation to a personality construct. Locus of control refers to one’s belief in his or her abilities to control life events (Strauser, 2002). In other words, locus of control is defined as one’s thoughts of his/her belief that his/her own power or forces out of his/her control are influential in any positive or negative situation occurring during his/her life (Sardogan, 2006). The belief of locus of control is related to what reinforcements have happened throughout the individuals’ lives, namely the results, prizes, their success or failures, refer to. These attributions refer not only to chance, fate, and powerful people out of one’s control, but also to the results of his/her own attitudes (Basım & Sesen, 2006). While one’s control on his/her own life dependent on chance, fate and powerful people is explained as external control; maintaining the individual control over one’s life on his/her own is described as the internal control (Rotter, 1966). When environmental conditions are not sufficient to explain individuals’ success or failures, locus of control can facilitate in making these situations clear. For instance, individuals may sometimes perceive good and bad events in different ways. To mention that these different ways are based on external and internal forces (Taylor, 2006). Some individuals believe that they can control what happens to them, while others believe that what happens to them is controlled by outside forces such as luck and opportunities. Locus of control is a " generalized belief that a person can or cannot control his own destiny or a person's perspective on the events whether he able to control behavior that happened to him or not (Rotter, 1966). Brownell (1982) suggested that locus of control is how far one accepts personal responsibility for what happens to them. Furthermore, Robbins (2003) defined locus of control as a person's perception of his fate source.The term locus of control simply refers to the extent to which one believes that events in one’s life are contingent on one’s own behaviour. According to the internal- external locus of control construct, persons with internal expectancies for control of reinforcement believe that their own behaviour determine the reinforcement they receive.

These persons are called internals. A person with internal locus of control attributes change to himself and to his actions. They believe and act as if they control their own futures and see themselves as effective agents in determining the occurrence of reinforcing events in life. In contrast, a person who believes in external control of reinforcements attributes their outcomes to chance, luck, fate, powerful others, and so on. These people are called externals. A person with external locus of control attributes changes to external sources, and believes that powerful forces such as fate, luck, chance, powerful others, social constraints ,or instructions are important factors determining the occurrence of reinforcing events in his life. A person with external locus of control believes that reinforcement does not depend on his actions or behaviour, but is “the result of luck, chance, fate, as under the control of powerful others or is unpredictable because of great complexity of forces” (Rotter, 1966). The implication of this is that individuals with internal locus of control may likely change their behaviour following reinforcements than those individuals with external locus of control. The key concept embedded in the construct on locus of control is one’s perception of control and external influences or reinforcements (Galejs, & Hegland, 1982).

In the social development process, the individuals develop quite consistent expectations about their own behaviors and results of actions, internal and external factors (Alisinanoğlu & Ulutaş, 2000). Rotter (1954) described these expectations as belief in the source of internal or external control, and named the areas as “locus of control” that the powers determining the positive or negative consequences (Dönmez, 1986; Tümkaya, 2001). Thus, people generalize their expectations of the results of their behavior based on one of the two trends. The first is expressed as the general expectation (or belief) that rewards and punishments are largely due to the individuals own actions and that their behavior is more effective than their emergence. This represents “internal control” and so those who possess this belief are described as “internally controlled”. The other is the general expectation with rewards and punishments that are applied, governed or supervised by other powers (e.g., God, fate, luck, other people, etc.) so that personal efforts will not be effective in achieving the reward and avoiding punishment and this refers to “external control” and those who possess this belief are described as “externally controlled” (Bozkurt & Harmanlı, 2002; Findley & Cooper, 1983; McIntyre, 1984). Internal control shows the belief that rewards come later depending on the behavior of individuals. Internal control is generally considered a positive feature since it is the result of great effort and success (Durak, 1997). Internally controlled persons act more independently. They have more power to deal with pressures from the environment and the family. They produce more constructive responses in the face of obstacles, have the power to decide on their own, and in case of any failure, they assume full responsibility (Ören, 1991). Explanations about how children and young people become successful despite risky and abusive experiences are important for preventive studies (Gizir, 2016). Considering that psychological resilience is related to healthy adaptation; whatever experiences people have, they try to maintain their well-being. Addressing protective factors is important for preventive studies at different levels. Therefore, examining the factors affecting psychological resilience has come to the fore as a prominent subject.

DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

Lerner (2004) defined deviant behavior as behavior which negates the values and harmony of the society. Secondary school students are majorly adolescent and adolescent development involves adjustment to changes in the self (e.g pertinent to puberty, cognitive and emotional characteristics and social expectations) and also alteration often institutional changes as well. Not all young people undergo these transitions in the same way, with the same speed, or with comparable outcomes. Individual differences are thus a key part of adolescent development, and are caused by differences in the timing of connections among biological, psychological, and societal factors with one of these influences acting either alone or as the prime mover of change (Lerner, 2004). The need for personal freedom and freedom from authority of significance is a strong motivator for adolescents and expression of this need can come in diverse ways. For example, deviant acts among adolescents can be seen as an avenue to assert individuality and identity causing rebellions against group and societal norms (Stoolmiller, 2001).

Adolescent delinquency involves not just criminal acts but also socially deviant behaviours that go against socially established rules including impulsivity, conflicts with authority, opposition and aggression (Morizot and Kazemian, 2015). It is a comprehensive concept that includes a broad range of behaviours with victims and perpetrators. As such, delinquent (in adolescence) and criminal (in adulthood) behaviour can be conceptualized as parts of a more profound antisocial behaviour syndrome that tend to be more persistent and stable (Farington, 2007) involving such a degree of destructiveness that may be punished following a conviction.

compared to a child who has a stable life with both parents. With only one parent, a child may receive only half the guidance given by two parents. This usually results in child making the wrong decisions like getting involved in other risk factors. Children who live in homes with one parent or in which marital relationship have been disrupted by divorce or separation are more likely to display a range of behavioural problems including delinquency than children from two parent families (Thornberry 1999). Parent teaches children to control unacceptable behaviour, to delay indulgence and to respect the rights of others. On the contrary, families can teach children aggressive, anti-social and violent behavior (Wright & Wright 1994). Smith and Tolan (1998) found that parental conflict and parental aggressiveness predicted violent offending, whereas, lack of maternal affection and paternal criminality predicted involvement in property crimes.

2.2 EMPIRICAL STUDIES

Several studies has been carried out on the childhood trauma, resilience and locus of control as predictor s of deviant behaviour.

In a study carried out by Tuğba Türk-Kurtça1 , Metin Kocatürk2 (2020) on the role of childhood traumas, emotional self-efficacy and the internal-external locus of control were investigated in predicting psychological resilience. The study included a total of 291 participants (208 females and 83 males) with average age of 20.29 (SD = 2.59). Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale, Internal-External Locus of Control Scale and Psychological Resilience Scale were used to collect data from participants. As a result of simple linear regression analysis, childhood traumas experiences, emotional self-efficacy and internal locus of control predicted resilience significantly among university students. Also, there was significant positive relationship between emotional self-efficacy, locus of control and resilience. On the other hand, resilience and childhood traumas were correlated negatively.In this research, it was found that psychological resilience was predicted by childhood traumas, emotional self-efficacy and locus of control. In addition to this main finding, there were significant relationship between independent variables and psychological resilience.

In a study carried out by Arowosegbe C. Kehinde A. Christanah K. & Adedayo T.(2019), This study investigates resilience and locus of control as predictors of delinquent Behaviour. Three hundred participants were used for this study. Three research instruments were used to measure the variable of interest and this include Deliquent Activity Scale aim to measure delinquent behavior among Secondary School Students, Resilience scale aim to measure resilience and Multidimensional Locus of Control aimed to measure individual locus of control. Two hypotheses were tested using Regression analysis and Pearson Correlation. The result of the study revealed that Resilience predicts Deliquent Behaviour and Locus of control does not predict Deliquent Behaviour. Findings are discussed according to the literatures and it is recommended that individual should avoid delinquent behavior at all cost in order to return sanity to the environment.

2.3 THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK

For the purpose of thi study, social learning theory is adopted for the study.

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

Social learning theory is a theory that attempts to explain socialization and its effect on the development of the self. There are many different theories that explain how people become socialized, including psychoanalytic theory, functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interaction theory. Social learning theory, like these others, looks at the individual learning process, the formation of self, and the influence of society in socializing individuals.

Social learning theory considers the formation of one’s identity to be a learned response to social stimuli. It emphasizes the societal context of socialization rather than the individual mind. This theory postulates that an individual’s identity is not the product of the unconscious (such as the belief of psychoanalytic theorists), but instead is the result of modeling oneself in response to the expectations of others. Behaviors and attitudes develop in response to reinforcement and encouragement from the people around us. While social learning theorists acknowledge that childhood experience is important, they also believe that the identity people acquire is formed more by the behaviors and attitudes of others.

Social learning theory has its roots in psychology and was shaped greatly by psychologist Albert Bandura. Sociologists most often use social learning theory to understand crime and deviance.

According to social learning theory, people engage in crime because of their association with others who engage in crime. Their criminal behavior is reinforced and they learn beliefs that are favorable to crime. They essentially have criminal models that they associate with. As a consequence, these individuals come to view crime as something that is desirable, or at least justifiable in certain situations. Learning criminal or deviant behavior is the same as learning to engage in conforming behavior: it is done through association with or exposure to others. In fact, association with delinquent friends is the best predictor of delinquent behavior other than prior delinquency.

Social learning theory postulates that there are three mechanisms by which individuals learn to engage in crime: differential reinforcement, beliefs, and modeling.

2.4 CHAPTER SUMMARY

Childhood abuse and neglect t are all actions or inaction of the adults towards the child, takeninto consideration withinthe concept of trauma, are viewed as inappropriateand harmful by social rules and experts due to causing damage to various stages of child’s development andendangering health and safety and on the adverse can lure a child into deviant behaviour. Thus a childs’ potentials, strengths, internal resources, emotional self-efficacy and positive characteristics during this traumatic experiences shapes how he/she chooses to cope with the situation. Children with high level of resilience control themselves in the midst of the pressure to engage in crime. Instead of reacting negatively by deviance due to the emotional and mental stressors presented through trauma, they find a positive way to cope. Therefore the study using social learning theory concludes that child trauma,resilience and locus of control are predictors of deviance among secondary school student