Reconciling Emotion and Rational Choice: Negativistic Auto Theft, Consequence Irrelevance, and the Seduction of Destruction

• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0022427819828793
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Reconciling Emotion

and Rational Choice:

Negativistic Auto

Theft, Consequence

Irrelevance, and the

Seduction of Destruction

Bruce A. Jacobs

1

and Michael Cherbonneau

2

Abstract

Objectives: We explore negativism in the context of auto theft and examine

its broader phenomenological significance for Rational Choice Theory.

Methods: Data were drawn from qualitative, in-depth interviews with 35

active auto thieves operating out of a large Midwestern U.S. city. Results:

Negativistic offending is malicious, spiteful, and/or destructive conduct

whose purpose is typically more hedonic (i.e., short-term gratification) than

instrumental (i.e., resource-generating) or normative (i.e., moralistic). It is

made possible by the notion of ownership without responsibility: Offenders

controlled a vehicle that was not theirs, promoting consequence irrelevance

which in turn unleashed reckless conduct. Conclusions: Consequence

1

Program in Criminology, School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, University of

Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA

2

Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of North Florida, Jacksonville,

FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Michael Cherbonneau, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of North

Florida, 1 UNF Drive, Jacksonville, FL 32224, USA.

Email: m.cherbonneau@unf.edu

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2019, Vol. 56(6) 783-815

ªThe Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

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DOI: 10.1177/0022427819828793

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irrelevance clarifies negativism’s logic and permits linkage between affect-

based and rational choice decision-making models.

Keywords

rational choice theory, emotions, decision-making, negativism, motor

vehicle theft

Few theories have been more central to deconstructing the black box of

offender decision-making than Rational Choice Theory (RCT). Tested vig-

orously over many decades on crimes of virtually all types (see, e.g., Cor-

nish and Clarke 1986; Loughran et al. 2016; Matsueda, Kreager, and

Huizinga 2006; Nagin and Paternoster 1993; Piliavin et al. 1986), RCT is

simple and relatively straightforward: Would-be offenders weigh the risks

and benefits of offending and engage in rule breaking when the latter

exceeds the former. Research in this tradition depicts offenders as reason-

ably contemplative and, in some cases, quite calculative during the

decision-making process.

Historically absent from this perspective are emotions. Indeed, the

expected utility model (Becker 1968) that dominates the field h as long

“sought to expunge the utility construct of its emotional content” (Loewen-

stein 2000:426), for two reasons. First, the influence of visceral factors “is

perceived as transient and hence unimportant.” Second, visceral factors “are

seen as too unpredictable and complex to be amenable to formal modeling”

(Loewenstein 2000:431).

Emerging studies suggest that this circumscribed view of offenders’

decision-making terrain may be unduly restrictive. These studies reveal that

emotion has utility in its own right and “tha t the anticipated emotional

consequences of criminal conduct is [sic] one of the benefits or utilities

(“thrills”) that are weighed in th e process of rational decision mak ing”

(Bouffard, Exum, and Paternoster 2000:162). In this article, we expand this

important line of inquiry, examining the way in which affect-driven conduct

can coexist with and even promote behavior, that is, on its face, instrumen-

tal or normative in nature.

1

Using the negativistic conduct of auto thieves as our empirical vessel, we

connect the phenomenology of wanton destruction to the rationality of

offender decision-making. Central to this linkage is the concept of conse-

quence irrelevance. Consequence irrelevance flows from what auto theft

uniquely, though not exclusively,

2

provides: control without ownership.

784 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 56(6)

Control without ownership (of an object, in this case, a vehicle) removes

responsibility for that object but bestows absolute jurisdiction over its dis-

position in function and practice. This sleight of hand ignites insouciance.

That insouciance, in turn, opens up a phenomenological source of reinfor-

cement, reveals that source to be an alternative form of utility, and infuses

rational choice with the affect-based relevance that it currently lacks. Here-

tofore, analysts have suggested that consequence irrelevance triggers crime

on the front end of offending, owing to powerful emotive forces like rage

and desperation that encourage offenders to do whatever they want and

simply not care. In this article, we focus on consequence irrelevance on the

back end of crime—long after the offense has begun but while it is still

underway—to link phenomenology and rational choice in a conceptually

novel way.

Emotions and Decision-making

Ethnographers (Katz 1988; Wright and Decker 1994) have long highlighted

the phenomenological allure of crime, most of which flows from the sense

of thrill or excitement of doing something forbidden (see also Lofland

[1969] on “adventurous deviance”). Crime can be exhilarat ing, offering

undeniable pleasure borne from taking chances and living on the edge

(Lyng 1990). This capacity has been reported in studies of everything from

graffiti tagging and petty delinquency to shoplifting, fleeing from police,

and drug robbery (see, e.g., Cromwell, Parker, and Mobley 1999; Halsey

2008; Jacobs 2000; Lopez 2008; Sanders 2005). The emergence of trans-

cendence theory in the late 1980s (Katz 1988) and more recent affect-based

models (Loewenstein 1996; Loewenstein, Nagin, and Paternoster 1997; van

Gelder 2013) reveal the increasing recognition that visceral states play a

prominent role in crime’s etiology. Paradoxically, the emotional rewards

from crime must compete with the emotional risks such as fear, anxiety,

guilt, shame, embarrassment, and regret (see, e.g., Hochstetler and Copes

2003; Jacobs and Cherbonneau 2017; Pickett, Roche, and Pogarsky 2018;

Warr 2016). As Bouffard et al. (2000:168) illustrate, “emotional states can

just as likely be felt as uncomfortable or anxiety provoking rather than as

pleasurable ...It is not at all unreasonable to think that, just as they can

facilitate some crimes, strong emotional states felt by offenders can act as a

deterrent and inhibit other crimes.” Indeed, part of the reason that some

crimes are so rewarding is because offenders have to overcome fears and

anxieties that deter the less intrepid, which bestows a palpable sense of

accomplishment (Jacobs and Cherbonneau 2017).

Jacobs and Cherbonneau 785