








































Abstract: Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory (GST) says that strain elicits negative 
emotions which are released through crime. Strain is any situation that causes distress 
which elicits a negative emotion. This paper focuses on one component of strain, the in-
ability to escape a harmful situation. A probable solution to this type of crime is the Lead-
ership Implementation Training model which suggests putting children through leadership 
training to reduce angry and aggressive responses. Examining the effectiveness of the 
Leadership Implementation Training model on a specific instance of situational anger, this 
article finds the model proves to be ineffective at reducing situational anger.

Aisthesis      Volume 7,  201634

Application of the LIT Model to General Strain Theory, 
Situational Anger, and Social Networks: An Assessment 
of Condition Influences

by Hannah Neukircher

Introduction
 Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory (GST) 
has roots in Merton’s Anomie theory, which states 
people resort to criminal behavior based on failure 
to achieve success in society (a situation that puts 
strain on a person). People achieve success through 
Merton’s specific modes of adaptation. Some modes 
are deemed criminal while others are not. Thus, the 
people who achieve success by the modes deemed 
criminal are called criminals. 
 Agnew (1992) derived his own theory from 
Merton’s by creating a causal mechanism for crime. 
The causal mechanism is a three-step process 
where crime is the outcome. Crime results when 
a person experiences negative emotions through 
strain; the strain is then released through criminal 
means. Strain is any stressful situation that brings 
up a negative emotion such as anger, fear, anxiety, 
etc.  GST is complex in nature because the three 
categories of strain are broad and can incorporate 
and draw on numerous stressful situations (Agnew, 
1992). Though Agnew (1992) divides strain into 
three categories, the focus of this paper is on one- 
the inability to escape noxious stimuli. Research 
shows that situational anger (Capowich, Mazerolloe, 
& Piquero, 2001) and victimization (Burt, Patel, 
Butler, & Gonzalez, 2013) are specific instances 
where individuals are unable to escape an unpleasant 
and/or harmful situation. These circumstances elicit 

anger that correlates with violent crime (Burt et al., 
2013; Capowich et al., 2001).
 In the midst of a toxic situation and an angered 
emotional state, individuals need to release their anger 
(Agnew, 1992). Sometimes that release is a violent 
criminal act. According to Agnew’s GST (1992), 
crime and delinquency are a means of releasing the 
negative emotions felt. Research conducted by Brezina 
(1996) assessed if committing crimes actually released a 
person’s negative emotions. The results showed they 
did. In this study, strain was correlated with negative 
emotions, and when delinquency was factored in, it 
seemed to reduce the negative emotions experienced 
from the stressful circumstance (Brezina, 1996).
 Following Brezina’s (1996) work, it is apparent 
that committing crime is an effective way to release 
negative emotions. However, the goal is to get people 
in these stressful circumstances the help they need, 
so they can deal with their noxious experience in 
a healthy way and not fall into criminal habits. 
Therefore, Burt, Patel, Butler and Gonzalez (2013) 
proposed a solution to help youth manage their anger 
through the application of leadership skills through 
the Leadership Implementation Model (LIT). 
 The purpose of this paper is to see if the application 
of leadership skills from the LIT model reduces anger 
and aggressive responses, which potentially could 
be criminal. Essentially, this article is facilitating a 
conversation between Capowich, Mazerolloe, and 



Application of the LIT Model to General Strain Theory, Situational Anger, and Social Networks: An Assess-
ment of Condition Influences

Aisthesis      Volume 7,  201635

Piquero’s (2001) findings and the results of Burt et 
al.’s (2013) Leadership Implementation Training 
model. The article concludes with input on the 
effectiveness of the proposed solution to reduce 
anger and aggressive, potentially criminal, behavior. 

Outline
 This article applies the LIT model to situational 
anger. The situational anger in Capowich et al.’s (2001) 
study is the possibility of losing one’s significant other 
to another person. In the beginning, the LIT model 
is outlined showing the training and curriculum 
used. Next, the results from the program are 
explained, evaluated,and interpreted. The evaluation 
of the results reveal criticisms in the measure of the 
leadership skills and measures of anger, which deter 
from the effectiveness of the model. 
 Following the LIT model, this article describes 
Capowich et al.’s (2001) scenario evoking situational 
anger. The strain comes from the possibility of losing 
one’s significant other to another person. Defining 
strain is necessary because that is the first component 
of Agnew’s (1992) GST that leads to crime. The second 
component, anger, is also present in Capowich et al.’s 
(2001) scenario. The participants in the study felt anger 
as a result of the thought of losing one’s significant 
other. The subjects released their anger via assault 
which is a crime, and a crime is the last component of 
GST (Agnew, 1992). 
 After describing situational anger, this article 
applies the effectiveness of the LIT model to the results 
of the scenario involving situational anger. Next, the 
article evaluates the effectiveness and discusses several 
criticisms of the LIT model. Lastly, the conclusion 
incorporates an overall summary of these findings. 
Ultimately, the criticisms invalidated the LIT model as 
a way to reduce anger and aggressive behaviors.

Leadership Implementation Training Model
 The Leadership Implementation Training Model’s 
(LIT) purpose is to teach elementary school children 
leadership skills in to reduce children’s anger and aggression 
levels (Burt et al., 2013). The training consisted of eight one-
hour long counseling sessions and two half-hour sessions 
for pre- and post-tests. The children were administered 
a self-report test that measured their anger management 
and leadership skills before and after training. Five 
leadership skills and five measures of anger were 

tested on a four point scale, with the possible choices 
on the scale being “… (1) Never, (2) Some of the time, 
(3) Most of the time, or (4) Always” (Burt et al., 2013, 
p. 128, emphasis in original). Two leadership skills 
tested the likelihood of the individual to use a specific 
leadership skill to avoid negative behaviors as a result of 
anger (self-responses), and the other three leadership 
skills tested the likelihood to discourage others to react 
on their anger (others’ responses). Also, four measures 
of anger tested the likelihood of negative reactions from 
that individual as a result of their anger (from the self) and 
one about the likelihood of encouraging others to engage 
in behavior as the result of anger (from others) (Burt et al., 
2013). 
 Continuing, the middle eight counseling sessions 
used Bandura’s agentic perspective to teach children 
the ability to facilitate changes in their surrounding 
environment for the benefit of themselves and 
others (Bandura, 2006; Burt et al., 2013). The agentic 
perspective is comprised of four components that 
help individuals change their situation for the better. 
Intentionality is the first component taught. Children 
learn to actively engage and compromise with others 
to accomplish individual and group goals (Bandura, 
2006; Burt et al., 2013). Next, the children were taught 
forethought, the ability to plan ahead and set goals 
that include the entire group (Bandura, 2006; Burt et 
al., 2013). Forethought helps the children apply their 
knowledge of potential outcomes to see what goals 
are attainable with their current group of peers. Third, 
children were taught self-reactiveness, the ability to 
control their personal behavior in group dynamics in 
order to achieve goals (Bandura, 2006; Burt et al., 2013). 
This third skill is vital. Because with this skill, children 
will eventually be able to control their behavioral 
responses when they feel angry. Thus the children will 
not respond negatively to themselves or others. Lastly, 
the counseling sessions introduced the component self-
reflectiveness, a person’s ability to examine behavior and 
actions as a leader, evaluate if the behaviors and actions 
are effective or not, and then make the appropriate 
adjustments for prospective actions and behaviors 
(Bandura, 2006; Burt et al., 2013). At the end of the 
training, the last session assessed the children on their 
anger management and leadership skills. 
   Results from the final assessment show there is 
an increase in two specific leadership skills and a 
decrease in one measure of anger. The two specific 



Application of the LIT Model to General Strain Theory, Situational Anger, and Social Networks: An Assess-
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Aisthesis      Volume 7,  201636

leadership skills are “I walk away when confronted” 
and “I help someone else stay out of fights.” “I walk 
away when confronted” represents a child’s ability 
to remove themselves from a situation that angers 
them, so they do not respond to confrontation 
with an aggressive behavior (Burt et al., 2013). An 
increase in this skill means these children are less 
likely to respond to confrontation in an aggressive 
manner because they are choosing to walk away. The 
second leadership skill is “I help someone else stay 
out of fights.” An increase in this skill means children 
will help prevent other children from engaging in 
aggressive behavior. Next, the measure of anger, 
“I encourage others to fight,” decreased after the 
children went through LIT training (Burt et al., 
2013). In other words, the leadership training helped 
children to not encourage their peers to fight even if 
they were angry.  Overall, the results from the pre- 
and post- test revealed that as total leadership skills 
increased, total anger decreased (Burt et al., 2013).

Situational Anger
 Given the LIT model’s goals and successes, this 
article now theoretically applies the model to people who 
face situational anger, specifically men in Capowich et 
al.’s (2001) vignette. Their scenario involved men facing 
the intrusion of another man vying for his girlfriend’s 
affections. The intrusion angered the boyfriend, which 
resulted in him assaulting the other man. Capowich 
et al. (2001) found that intentions to fight from the 
situational anger in this scenario increased as a result 
of the anger. These findings support GST’s notion that 
anger felt from strain can lead to criminal behaviors.
 Anger, like any emotion, needs a release. In Capowich 
et al.’s (2001) presented scenario, the boyfriend was 
so upset that he decided to assault the man trying to 
take away his girlfriend by bashing a beer bottle on the 
man’s head. The assault by the boyfriend was his release 
of anger. However, assault as a release of anger is a crime, 
which is something we aim to prevent. 
 Burt et al.’s (2013) proposed LIT model suggests 
that through the application of leadership skills, 
anger and aggressive responses would be reduced. 
However, the LIT model only increases one self-
leadership skill, “I walk away when angry.” Also, the 
LIT model resulted in no significant reductions in 
children’s personal reactions to anger (Burt et al., 
2013). There was only a significant reduction in 

the measure of anger, “I encourage others to fight.” 
Because this measure of anger was reduced, children 
were less likely to encourage other children to engage 
in fights. Unfortunately, this skill is not applicable to 
Agnew’s (1992) GST because his theory deals with 
the individual’s response to anger, not with a person’s 
choice to encourage or inhibit another person’s anger.  
Agnew’s (1992) GST only looks at individual anger, 
and the instrument used to test anger management 
and leadership skills only contains two questions 
asking about personal leadership skill responses and 
four measures of anger about individual reactions. 
Therefore, there are not sufficient questions 
applicable to Agnew’s GST.
 Since application of the LIT model leads to 
significant increases in the self-leadership skill “I walk 
away when confronted,” this study chose to apply the 
model to Capowich et al.’s (2001) scenario. In the 
scenario, walking away when confronted would have 
been helpful because the boyfriend would not have 
retaliated and punched the other man. However, the 
measures for anger and aggression, “I hit back when 
someone hits me first” and “I push, shove/slap/kick 
others,” which also applies to Capowich et al.’s (2001) 
scenario, were not significantly reduced by the LIT 
model (Burt et al., 2013). 
 This lack of reduction brings up a contradicting 
point; although a helpful leadership skill did increase, 
two other measures of anger did not significantly 
decrease. This is a contradiction because the whole 
point of this training program was to increase 
leadership skills and decrease measure of anger. In 
other words, the measures of anger, “I hit back when 
someone hits me first” and “I push, shove/slap/kick 
others,” would still be present in the individual and 
not be released after participation in the LIT model. 
This continued presence of anger in the boyfriend 
is problematic because a release is still needed. 
Potentially, he could still commit a crime, just not 
one at the presented situation. Thus, walking away 
when confronted does not reduce the boyfriend’s 
anger or his aggressive responses. It only reduces his 
aggressive response in that particular situation. 
 Interestingly, results in Burt et al.’s, (2013) study do 
not show or measure the effect of a specific leadership 
skill on a specific measure of anger. In other words, the 
study did not measure if the specific leadership skill “I 
walk away when confronted” increased or decreased a 



Application of the LIT Model to General Strain Theory, Situational Anger, and Social Networks: An Assess-
ment of Condition Influences

Aisthesis      Volume 7,  201637

specific measure of anger such as “I make threats to hit 
or hurt another person.” This is problematic because we 
are unable to ascertain the effect of one leadership skill 
on one measure of anger. All the study measured and 
presented was an overall increase or decrease of specific 
leadership skills and measures of anger. The study did 
not explore if a specific leadership skill influenced a 
specific measure of anger. Because the study of the 
LIT model did not examine the influence of specific 
leadership skills and specific measures of anger, the 
exact effect of the LIT model on anger management is 
unable to be determined. 
 From the above criticisms, it appears the LIT model 
is not an effective means at reducing anger and aggressive 
responses. Since anger is a mediating variable in Agnew’s 
(1992) GST between strain and crime and the LIT model 
is not effective at reducing anger, crime would not be 
reduced. Therefore, there is not sufficient evidence to show 
the LIT model can be used as a means to reduce anger in 
order to reduce crime.
  
Conclusion
 In theory, the Leadership Implementation 
Training model is a good idea. However, upon closer 
examination, it does not prove itself to be effective. The 
LIT model is not a probable solution for the situation 
created by the Capowich et al. (2001) scenario.
 The first reason is the LIT model did not look at the 
effect of specific leadership skills on specific measures 
of anger. There was no way to know if the specific 
leadership skill “I walk away when confronted” reduced 
a specific outcome of anger. Although that leadership 
skill was increased from the training program, the LIT 
study did not show which specific measure of anger it 
reduced. Since the point of the LIT model is to reduce 
anger and aggressive responses through leadership 
skills, it is imperative to see which leadership skills 
reduce which measures of anger in order to see which 
skills work and which ones do not. However, the LIT 
model study did not compare the specific leadership 
skills to specific measures of anger. To Burt et al.’s (2013) 
credit, they did mention their leadership and anger 
management scale had not been tested for its validity, 
so the researchers were aware problems could arise. 
Although Burt et al. (2013) mentioned the potential 
problem with their scale of measure, they said their 
findings were still proof enough to be used in therapy. 
From the evidence previously stated, I do not agree 

with that statement. Since the direct effect of specific 
leadership skills on specific measures of anger was not 
evaluated, the analysis deems the LIT model ineffective 
at reducing anger and aggressive responses. 
 Another reason the LIT model is not a probable 
solution is that the model’s increased specific 
leadership skill “I walk away when confronted” does 
not release the anger from the individual but instead 
helps the individual avoid the criminal behavior in 
that situation. This is problematic because the anger 
still needs to be released and could still be released 
through criminal behaviors. If the boyfriend would 
have walked away, he still would have felt angry and 
would have needed to release his anger. He could 
have come into contact with someone else who 
angered him, and the boyfriend could have assaulted 
someone else.
 In the end, the LIT model does not address the 
impact of specific leadership skills on specific measures 
of anger. Nor does it address what happens to the anger 
that has not been released and how that anger could still 
be released through criminal behavior. Due to these 
problems, the LIT model is not an effective means to 
reduce anger and aggressive and/or criminal behaviors.

References
Agnew, R. (1992). Foundation for a general strain theory 

of crime and delinquency. Criminology ,30, 47-88.

Bandura, A. (2006). Toward a psychologty of human 
agency Perspectives of Phychological Science ,2, 164-
180. doi:10.111/j.1745-6916.2006.00011.x

Brezina, T. (1996). Adapting to strain: An examination 
of delinquent coping responses. Criminology, 34, 
39-58. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.1996.tb01194.x

Burt, I., Patel, S. H., Butler, S. K., & Gonzalez, T. 
(2013). Integrating leadership skills into anger 
management groups to reduce aggressive 
behaviors: The LIT model. Journal of Mental Health 
Counseling, 35(2), 124- 141. Retrieved from http://
search.proquest.com/docview/1346367815/
fulltextPDF?accountid=8111 

Capowich, G. E., Mazerolle, P., & Piquero, A. (2001). 
General strain theory, situational anger, and 
social networks: An assessment of conditioning 
influences. Journal of Criminal Justice, 29, 445-
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