A Study of Influential Factors on University Student's Vandalism: An Partial Test of Agnew s General Strain Theory

The aim of this study was using public pressure Agnew theory to examine the relationship between various types of stress and negative emotions and also to examine effects of negative emotions on the vandalistic behaviors of students. The method is survey and 394 students of Mazandaran University have responded to the questionnaire. The results indicate that the independent variables are extracted from public press theory ‘Agnew, negative emotions, variable influencing behavior on vandalistic students. Regression analysis showed significant differences are by gender in explaining changes in vandalistic behavior of student. As increasing positive stimulus is removed, the vandalistic behavior of boys increases. In contrast, to the increased negative emotions, vandalistic behaviors in girls also increase. Pressure resulting from exposure to a negative stimulus and failure to achieve positively valued goals influenced Negative emotions as influential variable in this study. Feel angry is most of the negative emotions that result in vandalistic behaviors between boys and girls.