critica de shuterland a w. sheldon

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American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological

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Critique of Sheldon's Varieties of Delinquent YouthAuthor(s): Edwin H. Sutherland

Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Feb., 1951), pp. 10-13Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2087963Accessed: 02-06-2015 20:57 UTC

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2/5

CRITIQUE OF

SHELDON'S VARIETIES

OF

DELINQUENT

YOUTH*

EDWIN

H.

SUTHERLAND

Indiana University

HELDON

'S

Varieties

of Delinquent

Youth1

is

the third of his

books

in

constitutional

psychology. The

two

basic

principles of

his

constitutional psy-

chology are

that

behavior is a

function of

structure, that is, of

the

organism,

and that

the

organism and

its

behavior can

best

be

described in quantitative terms. His pre-

vious

studies

resulted in

the

conclusions

that

somatotypes

may be

classified as

endo-

morphic,

mesomorphic,

and

ectomorphic,

that

with

these

are closely

correlated

three

temperamental

types-viscerotonia, somato-

tonia,

and

cerebrotonia-and

also

three

psy-

chiatric

types-manic,

paranoid,and

heboid.

Each

of

these-somatotype,

temperamental

type, and

psychiatric

type-is a

continuum

with

quantitative

variations of the three

components, which

are

described

by three

quantitative

indexes. The

hypothesis

im-

plicit in

Sheldon's

writings is

that all

varia-

tions in

personality and

behavior will be

found

to be

related to

variations

in

these

basic

indexes.

Sheldon shouts

dogmatically

that this

constitutional

psychology

is

the

only

way

to

study

personality

and behavior

and that

it

is the Messiah

for

a world

rushing

into

societal

chaos. This

first

report

of

constitu-

tional

psychology

in

action is

presented

to

the

public

presumably

as

a

demonstration

of its

value. But

constitutional

psychology

will be a false Messiah

if

its

saving power

*

This is probably

the last paper

that Dr.

Suther-

land

wrote.

It

was read

at the annual meeting

of

the American

Sociological Society

held in Denver,

September

7-9, 1950, just

a

month

before

his

death.

-Ed.

'-William H. Sheldon with the collaboration

of

Emil

M. Hartl

and

Eugene

McDermott: Varieties

of Delinquent

Youth: An Introduction

to Consti-

tutional Psychiatry.

New

York: Harper & Brothers,

1949.

in other applications

is no

greater

than in

this application

to delinquency.

I shall

state

in nine

propositions

the reasons

for my

unfavorable appraisal

of

this study

in

de-

linquency.

In

doing

so I shall not

be

con-

cerned

with his general philosophical

position

on the

mind-body problem

but only

with

his argumentson this question as they refer

to delinquency.

First, his

definition

of

delinquency

effec-

tively

removes

this

study

from the area

of

empirical

research and

fixes

it

firmly

in the

area of

homiletics.

He defines delinquency

as disappointingness

and the

feelings

of

Dr. Sheldon are

obviously the

criterion of

disappointment.

He is disappointed

in

the

clients

of welfare

agencies, college

students,

psychologists,

psychiatrists,

physicians,

and

in fact all modern society, and pronounces

them all delinquent.

But

the

(Sheldon's

italics)

delinquency is

to teach a child

to feel and express

reverence

for the word

God. It

is not

possible

to do

empirical

research on the

question: Why

does a per-

son disappoint Dr. Sheldon?

This is

the first

reason why

his constitutional

psychology

is a false

Messiah.

Second,

his manner

of

selecting

cases

for

this study effectively prevents him from

reaching

valid general conclusions

regarding

delinquency.

This book is

an analysis of

200 boys who

were clients

of

the

Hayden

Goodwill

Inn

in

Boston.

This

Inn

is a

rehabilitation

home

to

which boys are re-

ferred

by

about

fifty

social agencies.

It is

not possible

to determine

from

his descrip-

tion

whether

these

200

boys were

a random

sample

of

the

population

of the Inn.

More-

over, we do

not know what population

is

supposed

to be representedby the boys in

the Inn.

Although he says the boys

at the

Inn

were

more

or less delinquent,

we do

not

know what he means

by delinquent.

10

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3/5

CRITIQUE

OF SHELDON'S

VARIETIES

OF DELINQUENT YOUTH

11

At least

22 of the 200 boys

either

had no

known

violations of law or

only a few minor

violations

such as practically

all of

us have

committed. Consequently

violations of law

are not his criterion of selection and his

conclusions

do not apply

to law violations.

While he is generally disappointed

in these

200 youths,

he might have

selected some

other

group of persons disappointing

to him

and found different

varieties of delinquents

and especially a

different

distribution of the

varieties.

His findings, therefore,

have no

general significance

regarding

delinquency

either as law violation

or as disappointing

behavior.

Third,

his method

of scoring delinquency

is subjective

and unreliable.

He gives a total

delinquency

score

to each

of

the

200 boys.

These

scores range

from

0 to 10.

A

score of

8

to 10 means

that a

person's

adjustment

is

interfered

with to the extent that

he

should

be

permanently

confined

in

an

institution,

and

at the other extreme a

score of

1

means

that

interference with adjustment is

not

necessarily

serious or permanent.

This

total

score is the sum of scores on seven charac-

teristics, namely,

mental insufficiency,

medi-

cal

insufficiency,

first-order

psychopathy,

second-order

psychopathy,

alcoholism,

homo-

sexuality,

and

primary

criminality.

Each

of

these

items has a score

ranging from 0 to

10

and each is scored by

the same criterion

of interferencewith adjustment. Interference

with

adjustment

is

apparently

synonymous

with

disappointingness

and the score

reflects

not only

the investigator's

evaluation

of

this but

also

his causal

interpretation

of the

reasons

for the

interference.

This is

not

a

matter

of observation

on which

investigators

might agree

but involves

the

systems

of

philosophy

of the investigators.

Many types

of

assumptions

must be made.

For

instance,

he

assumes

that

an

IQ

of

72-78

interferes

with

adjustment

twice as

much as

an

IQ

of

79-85.

On data

with

less

standardization

than

the

IQ

no

specific

instructions

for

scoring can be given. No other investigator

with Sheldon's

data

and instructions would

be

likely

to make a close

approximation

to

his

scores

and it

is

doubtful

whether

he

could

duplicate

his

own

scores.

He

is

very

critical of psychiatrists

for using

many words

with vague

meanings,

but his methodology

consists essentially

of the substitution

of

numbers

with

vague meanings

for words

with vague meanings and at the same time

beating his breast

as the champion

of

ob-

jectivity.

Finally, one

of the

most atrocious

errors

in logic is in his

concept

of primary

criminality.

He describes

primary criminality

as a residual

category and from

it are

ex-

cluded

all violations

of law

which Sheldon

interprets

as the natural

consequence

of

constitutional

deficiencies. For

instance, to

a feebleminded

youth

with many serious

violations of

law Sheldon might

give a score

of 0 on primary criminality with the ex-

planation

that these

violations of law

were

merely

an expression

of mental

insufficiency

and presented no new

problem. This

inter-

pretation

overlooks the

fact that a large

pro-

portion of the

inmates

of

institutions

for the

feebleminded

are extraordinarily

observant

of

laws

and regulations.

For

generations

scholars have

attempted by empirical

re-

search to discover

the extent

to which

and

the ways in which mental deficiency and

psychopathies

are

related

to

violations

of

law, and consensus

among

them is still

lacking. Sheldon settles

the question

in

a

cavalier

mannerby the dogmatic

assumption

that

when a

person with

a defect

commits

a crime he commits

the crime because

of

the

defect. This assumption

is obviously

unwarranted.

Fourth,

the varieties

of

delinquent

youth

determined

by

these

meaningless

scores

are

themselves

meaningless.

A

person

is classi-

fied

by

relative scores;

if he has a

higher

score

for

mental

insufficiency

than

for

any

other

item,

he

is classified

as

mentally

in-

sufficient.

Another

youth

with

the

same

IQ

as

this

person

may

be classified

in

a different

variety.

The

36

youths

who are

classified

as

mentally

insufficient

have

IQ's

ranging

from

85 to

50,

but 62

others

among

the

200

have

IQ's

ranging

from

85

to

50 and are

not so

classified. The same thing is true of each of

the other

varieties.

This

overlapping,

in

which Sheldon

takes

great pride,

is

evidence

of

the subjectivity

of

the classification.

Fifth,

the several

varieties

of

delinquent



4/5

12 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW

youth

do not

differ from each

other signifi-

cantly

in their

somatotypal and

psychiatric

indexes.

Either these

basic measurements

of

constitutional

psychology are

useless for

differentiating varieties of delinquents or the

varieties which

Sheldon

reports are not real

varieties from

the

point

of

view

of

consti-

tutional

psychology, or both

are true.

Sixth,

the

somatotypal

and

psychiatric

indexes

of the 200 youths

do not

have evalu-

ative

meaning, although Sheldon

assumes

that

they demonstrate the

social

unfitness of

these youths. His

general

finding

is

that the

200 youths

are somewhat

on

the

meaty

and

hefty

side,

which means

that

they

are con-

centrated

somewhat

in

the endomorphic

and

mesomorphicareas

and are

underrepre-

sented in the

ectomorphic

area; and

that

they

are slightly inclined

toward psycho-

neurosis with

emphasis

on the manic and

paranoid

components and with

underrepre-

sentation

of

the

heboid

component. Sheldon

has not

shown

that the

location of

a particu-

lar

person or the

concentration of

a number

of

persons

in

a

particular

area of his soma-

totypal and psychiatric triangles has any

significance as

to

social

fitness.

At

times he

seems to assume than an

even distribution

over the

triangles

is

desirable

in

any group,

but in

contrast

with this

he indicates that

military and

business

leaders and

psychia-

trists are

concentrated

in

the

same areas

as

are these

200

delinquent youths, and that

all of

these

groups

alike

are

underrepresented

in

the

ectomorphicand

heboid areas

in

which

psychotic

patients are

concentrated.At

times

he

suggests

that

the

somatotype

at

the center

of his

trianglewith the

index

4-4-4

is

the

ideal

type,

and he

shows

that

college students

are

evenly

distributed around

this center.

However, college students

are

not

apprecia-

bly

closer to

this

center

on

the

average than

are the 200

youths.

Consequently, his in-

dexes do not in

any way

show that the distri-

bution

of these 200

youths is

worse than

that

of any

other part of the

population.

Seventh, Sheldon's most general conclu-

sion,

which he shouts with

religious

hysteria,

namely,

the

necessity

of

selective

breeding,

is

completely

unrelated

to his

data. He

pre-

tends to

arrive at this

conclusion

from the

study

of

200

youths

and

asserts: Whatever

else may

be true of the delinquency

I

saw

in

Boston, it is

mainly in the germ plasm.

(p.

872)

The

only

data

in

his study

that have

a conceivable relationship to inheritance of

criminality

are presented

in a table which

Sheldon

states

is the

piece

de resistance

of

the

report. This table

merely shows that the

200

youths

are much like their parents

in

total

delinquency scores.

Even if we waive

the appraisal that

these delinquency

scores

are unreliable

we

have

in

this table

no

proof

of inheritance,

for

similarity

of parents

and

offspring may

be due

to

social

interaction as

well

as to inheritance.

Eighth,

the variations

in the civil delin-

quencies

of the 200

youths

are

not

signifi-

cantly related

to variations

in the

somato-

typal and psychiatric

indexes. Of

the

200

youths 68

were committed before

the age

of 19 to

correctional institutions. The

mean

somatotypal and

psychiatric indexes

of these

68 youths

are

not

significantly

different from

similar indexes

of the other

132 youths who

were

not

committed

to

correctional

institu-

tions. Also, Sheldon uses the symbol t to

refer

to thoroughbredness

in contrast

with

the mongrel

type,

and

he places

much

emphasis on

this as another

constitutional

indicator. The

68 youths who

were social

problems

to the

extent of being

committed

to

correctional

institutions did

not differ

significantly

in

their scores

on primary and

secondary t

from the youths

who were not

so

committed.

Because

commitment

to a correctional

institution

is

not

a

very

adequate

index of

delinquency

I

have

attempted

to construct

from

Sheldon's

data

another classification.

I

classified

the

200

youths

by

the serious-

ness and

consistency

of their

civil

delin-

quencies,

using

a

five-point

scale and

taking

the information

from

the

200

biographies

in

Sheldon's

volume.

A score of

0

was

given

when

the

biography

stated that the

youth

had no known

civil

delinquency

or when

the

delinquenciesreportedwere minor violations

of

law

characteristic

of

practically

all col-

lege

students.

A

score

of 4

was given

to

those youths

who were described

as

gang-

sters

engaged

progressively

in more serious



5/5

CRITIQUE

OF

SHELDON'S VARIETIES

OF

DELINQUENT

YOUTH

13

crimes and integrated in a criminal culture.

The other scores were intermediate.

The

mean somatotypal and psychiatric indexes

and the

mean

primary

and secondary

t

scores are presented in Table I, in relation

to their criminal records on this five-point

scale. The most delinquent do not differ

significantly from the least delinquent on

any component

of

any

of

the indexes

shown

in this Table. Although the mesomorphic

TABLE I. MEAN

SOMATOTYPAL

AND

PSYCHIATRIC

INDEXES

AND

MEAN

SCORES

ON

PRIMARY AND

SECONDARY

T FOR

200

YOUTHS,

BY CRIMINAL

RECORD

SCORES

Criminal

Pri-

Second-

Score Number Somatotypal Index Psychiatric Index mary t ary t

0

22

3.7-4.3-2.9

2.0-1.7-1.2

2.6

2.6

1

32

3.5-4.4-3.0

2.5-1.9-1.6

2.6

2.7

2

59

3.6-4.5-2.7

2.9-2.0-1.5

2.6

2.5

3

58

3.5-4.6-2.7

2.9-1.9-1.4

2.6

2.3

4

28

3.3-5.3-2.2

3.2-2.1-1.2

2.6

2.3

Total 200

3.5-4.6-2.7

2.8-1.9-1.4

2.6

2.5

and manic

components increase

consistently

with

increasing

criminality

and

the

ecto-

morphic and heboid components decrease

almost

consistently

with

increasing

crimi-

nality, these trends

are

very

slight

and

they

are

not

accompanied

by

analogous trend in

the

other

components.

The general conclu-

sion

is

that in

this

group

of 200

youths

the

variations in civil

delinquencies

are

not

sig-

nificantly related

to

variations

in

Sheldon's

indexes

of

constitutional

psychology. This

conclusion conflicts

with

Sheldon's

precon-

ceptions and conclusions, but it is based on

his data

and it

is

probably the

most

impor-

tant result

of his

study.

Ninth,

the

futility

of

this

study in

con-

stitutional

psychology

should

have

been

ob-

vious in

advance from

previous

failures of

analogous

studies.

Sheldon

is

added

to

the

list of Lombroso, Kretschmer, Hooton, and

other

failures

who

attempted

to

demonstrate

a

physical

difference

between

criminals

and

non-criminals.

Analogous

efforts

to

differenti-

ate

criminals

from

non-criminals

as

to

gen-

eric

traits

of

personality

have

been

equally

futile.

Schuessler and

Cressey

last

year

sum-

marized

113

studies

which

used

objective

tests of personality traits of criminals in

comparison

with

control

groups,

and

this

was

the

entire

number

of

such

studies

avail-

able.

Their

conclusion

was

that

this

series

of

113

studies

did

not

provide

a

consistent

demonstration

that

criminals

differ

from

non-criminals

with

reference

to

any

person-

ality

trait.2

Sheldon

has

added

one

more

study

to

this

list

of

failures.

2

Karl

F.

Schluessler

and

Donald

R.

Cressey,

Personality Characteristics of

Criminals,

Ameri-

can

Journal

of

Sociology,

55

(March,

1950),

476-

484.


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