NCJ Number
161538
Date Published
1996
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This essay reviews the research literature to examine whether or not personality factors have a connection with criminal behavior.
Abstract
The discussion of three major dimensions of personality is based on a review of hundreds of correlational and factor analytic studies in a number of countries. Royce and Powell (1983) have summarized and reanalyzed these data and confirm the theory developed by Eysenck and Eysenck (1976) that these three factors deal with social interactions (extraversion- introversion); emotional reactions and anxieties (neuroticism); and aggressive and egocentric impulses and their control (psychoticism). Traits that characterize the psychoticism factor are being aggressive, cold, egocentric, impersonal, impulsive, antisocial, unemphatic, creative, and tough-minded. Persons with the extraversion factor are sociable, lively, active, assertive, sensation-seeking, carefree, dominant, and venturesome. Persons influenced by the neuroticism factor are anxious, depressed, plagued with guilt feelings, possessed by low self-esteem, and are tense, irrational, shy, moody, and emotional. This study reviews descriptive studies that focus on the relationship between antisocial and criminal behavior on the one hand and the major personality dimensions and their traits on the other hand. This review found that identical findings have been reported from the German and English-speaking literature. The author concludes that personality and antisocial and criminal behavior correlate in different countries. 5 figures and 82 references