Delinquency as a symptom of adolescents' orientation toward status and success.

In this paper, we follow the premise that delinquency in adolescence is a by-product of struggles with developmental tasks. In an empirical analysis of a survey of 1717 West German adolescents aged between 12 and 16, we found evidence that delinquency was associated with adolescents' conformity to society's standards of prestige and success. Data are presented that show a relationship between delinquency and inability to succeed at school, on the one hand, and failure to achieve full recognition of status and prestige in the peer group, on the other hand. The findings provide evidence that difficulties and problems connected with the integration into the network of academic performance, as well as difficulties and problems connected with recognition within the peer group, are associated with delinquency.