Something Old, Something New: A Preliminary Investigation of Hirschi’s Redefined Self‐Control

Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime has generated an impressive array of theoretical and empirical research. One particular area of research has concerned the definition and operationalization of self‐control. Recently, Hirschi has redefined self‐control as the tendency to consider the full range of potential costs of a particular act, and suggests that such inhibiting factors vary in both number and salience in how they relate to criminal activity. This study reports the results of an original data collection effort designed to measure Hirschi’s redefined and reconceptualized self‐control concept and compares its predictive ability to the most commonly used attitudinal measure of self‐control. Results suggest that Hirschi’s redefined self‐control concept, and our measurement of it, is significantly and negatively associated with two types of criminal acts, and it eliminates the direct effect of a commonly used attitudinal measure of self‐control. As a point of theoretical extension, we offer that self‐control should be considered in a situational manner. Future theoretical and empirical directions are outlined.