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Previous studies have indicated that insecure attachment experiences in adolescence often cause an increased tendency to use delinquency as a mode of self-fulfillment. If adolescents are insecure because parents and teachers do not support them during this critical time period when they are just developing a sense of self, they may seek an identity through delinquency. Delinquency also becomes a crude form of securing at least some form of attachment from parents or from the larger social order that the adolescent believes does not care about him or her (Allen et al. 2002: 57). Insecure attachments give rise to low self-esteem, which is also associated with delinquency. However, it should be noted that the theory of operant condition also allows for inadvertent encouragement of negative behaviors like delinquency through parental distance. It could be argued that a parent who ignores a teen except when the teen is in trouble in school is conditioning' that teen to continue to misbehave. According to attachment theory, delinquency is more of an unconscious form of self-expression, rather than the result of a 'conditioning' process (Allen et al. 2002: 63).

This comparison of the two theories is significant because of the implications for how delinquency is treated in schools and at home. For example, it is very common for delinquent behavior in the school system to be 'punished' with a suspension, with the presumption that the child will not want this on his or her permanent record. But a student who has little hope of graduating may find being suspended more of a reward than a punishment, and thus the conditioning process of punishment has actually been counter-productive. An attachment theorist would likewise say that school suspensions are ineffective, but for a different reason: taking students out of the community of the school merely makes them feel more isolated and thus more inclined to misbehave and lash out at others. It unintentionally affirms the delinquent's status as someone who is 'bad' and outside of the norm.

When applying operant conditioning, it is thus essential to ask what the student regards as punishment and what is regarded as a reward. With this in mind, some school districts have actually given monetary awards to at-risk students who improve their grades, demonstrating to them that the pleasures of behaving outweigh those of delinquency. Attachment theory would suggest a more subtle solution -- for example, fostering partnerships