Short-Term Mindsets and Crime
Why are some people more likely to commit crime than others? Answers to this question, which is at the heart of criminology, can be grouped into two broad views. On the one hand, dispositional perspectives argue that stable factors within the individual, such as lack of self-control, lie at the roots of criminal conduct. Sociogenic perspectives, on the other hand, put the locus of study outside the individual and point towards factors such as rough neighborhoods, parental unemployment, and deviant peers as the main causes of crime. In spite of ample empirical support for both views, there has been relatively little constructive engagement between the two schools of thought. Yet, it is precisely research at this intersection that is likely to yield the most dividends when it comes to improving our understanding of criminal conduct.
The ERC-funded CRIMETIME project (ERC Consolidator Grant 772911) aims to address this gap in the current knowledge base by outlining and testing a new perspective on criminal behavior that integrates the dispositional and the sociogenic view, focusing on a well-established correlate of crime: the tendency to concentrate on immediate benefits at the expense of considering long-term costs (i.e., short-term mindsets). This perspective is premised on the idea that such mindsets encourage crime, and it specifies how both individual dispositions and sociogenic variables can encourage such mindsets. That is, rather than being stable, as is commonly assumed in criminology, short-term mindsets are malleable and change over time as a function of exposure to environmental factors such as victimization, parenting styles, sanctions, and delinquent peers—factors that have all separately been related to crime in important ways.
Selected Publications
Van Gelder, J.-L., & Frankenhuis, W. E. (2024). Short-Term mindsets and crime. Annual Review of Criminology, 2025(8), 18.1–18.26. doi:10.1146/annurev-criminol-022422-124536
Defoe, I. N., Van Gelder, J.-L., Ribeaud, D., & Eisner, M. (2024). Short-term mindsets show co-development with adolescent delinquency, but not with adolescent cannabis use. Journal of research on adolescence: the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence, 34(3), 857–870. doi:10.1111/jora.12973
Kübel, S., Deitzer, J., Frankenhuis, W. E., Ribeaud, D., Eisner, M., & Van Gelder, J.-L. (2024). Beyond the Situation: Hanging Out with Peers now is Associated with Short-Term Mindsets Later. Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology. doi:10.1007/s40865-024-00249-2
Deitzer, J., Frankenhuis, W. E., Ribeaud, D., Eisner, M., & Van Gelder, J.-L. (2024). Effect of early interactions with the police on intertemporal choice: A longitudinal study of Zurich public school students. Crime & Delinquency. doi:10.1177/00111287241264224
Deitzer, J., Frankenhuis, W. E., Ribeaud, D., Eisner, M., Feinberg, M., Jacobsen, W. C., & Van Gelder, J.-L. (2024). Why do harsh and unpredictable environments lead to delinquency? The case for unpredictability schemas and short-term mindsets. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. doi:10.1177/00224278241275573
Ganschow, B., Zebel, S., Van der Schalk, J., Hershfield, H. E., & Van Gelder, J.-L. (2023). Adolescent Stressful Life Events Predict Future Self- Connectedness in Adulthood. The Journal of Early Adolescence. doi:10.1177/02724316231216380
Kübel, S., Deitzer, J., Frankenhuis, W. E., Ribeaud, D., Eisner, M. P., & Van Gelder, J.-L. (2023). The shortsighted victim: Short-term mindsets mediate the link between victimization and later offending. Journal of Criminal Justice, 86, 102062. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2023.102062
De Courson, B., Frankenhuis, W. E., Nettle, D., & Van Gelder, J.-L. (2023). Why is violence high and persistent in deprived communities? A formal model. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 290, 20222095. doi:10.1098/rspb.2022.2095
Defoe, I. N., Van Gelder, J.-L., Ribeaud, D., & Eisner, M. (2021). The Co-development of Friends’ Delinquency with Adolescents’ Delinquency and Short-term Mindsets: The Moderating Role of Co-Offending. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, (50), 1601–1615. doi:10.1007/s10964-021-01417-z
Van Gelder, J.-L., Averdjk, M., Ribeaud, D., & Eisner, M. (2020). Sanctions, short‐term mindsets, and delinquency: Reverse causality in a sample of high school youth. Legal and Criminological Psychology. doi:10.1111/lcrp.12170
Van Gelder, J.-L., Averdjk, M., Ribeaud, D., & Eisner, M. (2020). Sanctions, short‐term mindsets, and delinquency: Reverse causality in a sample of high school youth. Legal and Criminological Psychology. doi:10.1111/lcrp.12170
Cornet, L. J. M., & Van Gelder, J.-L. (2020). Virtual reality: a use case for criminal justice practice. Psychology, Crime & Law. doi:10.1080/1068316X.2019.1708357
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