Self-Control, Risky Lifestyles, and Victimization among Chinese Adolescents

Violent and property victimization among Chinese adolescents remains a social problem, yet studies that incorporate individual characteristics and situational/contextual factors to explain such victimization remain scarce. Drawing upon survey data collected from a large, representative sample of middle school students from two areas in Guizhou Province, China, we test Schreck's integrated model of victimization, finding that self-control has both direct and indirect influences on violent and property victimization among Chinese adolescents. Delinquent peers play the most significant intermediate role in connecting self-control and adolescent victimization. Results reconfirm the importance of both self-control and risky lifestyles/situations in shaping victimization, and identify a victimization pathway that accentuates the key linking mechanism of delinquent peers in the self-control-victimization nexus.