The purpose of this study was to test the moral model of criminal lifestyle development with data from the 1,725-member (918 boys and 807 girls) National Youth Survey. It was hypothesized that peer delinquency would predict proactive criminal thinking but not deviant identity as part of a four-variable chain running from peer delinquency to participant delinquency. Consistent with this hypothesis, the pathway running from peer delinquency to proactive criminal thinking to deviant identity to participant delinquency was significant but the pathway running from peer delinquency to deviant identity to proactive criminal thinking to participant delinquency was not. Deviant identity nonetheless predicted proactive criminal thinking and delinquency. These results support a major pathway in the moral model and indicate that while deviant identity plays a role in antisocial development, it is as a cause and effect of proactive criminal thinking rather than as an effect of delinquent peer associations.
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