Corroborate Agnew's General Strain Theory

The Yates’ unconventional standard of living along with the social belief that a woman’s role is to be the homemaker could have created anxiety and undue pressure on Andrea. Their pastor and mentor, Woroniecki “preached that parents were ultimately responsible for the souls of their children” and if children were behaving poorly the parents should “commit suicide rather than cause their children to stumble and go to hell” (Lancet 1952). The Yates lived on Woroniecki’s converted bus for two years with Noah, John, and Paul—all of which toddlers—while Andrea tried to be content because she “thought [she] was helping [her] husband and trying to do what [Rusty] wanted”(Park & Dietz 9). Upon giving birth to her fourth child, Andrea had her first

Agnew’s theory pulls from sociological literature concerning mental health, focusing on associations between taxing experiences, negative emotions, and social behavior. According to Agnew (1992), there are three forms of strain that one may experience: “prevention from achieving positively valued goals, removal or the threat of removal of positively valued stimuli, and presentation or threat of presentation of noxious stimuli or negatively valued stimuli” (Agnew, 1992, p. 48). General strain theory (GST) also suggests that there are “strains, particularly conflicting social relationships, that engender negative affective states (e.g., anger, fear, frustration) that create internal pressure for corrective action” (Aseltine, 2010, p. 257). The corrective action can be seen as a way to escape the negative emotion or rid one’s self from the pressure or strain. Agnew (1995) does recognize that, while situations in life can create pressures toward deviance and violence, strain does not inevitably lead to violent behavior. However, Agnew (1995) argues that the effect of strain on deviance and violence is conditioned by the personal and social context in which strain is