Abstract
Purpose
Although the relationship between personality and antisocial behaviors has been widely examined and empirically supported in the psychological literature, relatively few efforts to study this relationship have appeared in mainstream criminology.
Materials and methods
The current study focuses on the domains and facets from the Five-Factor Model of personality, and how they are related to antisocial and aggressive behaviors.
Introduction
Criminology has made great strides in uncovering factors that contribute to the commission of crime, including association with deviant peers (McGloin and O'Neill Shermer, 2009 and Warr, 2002), parenting (Wright and Cullen, 2001 and Jones et al., 2007), and self-control (Pratt & Cullen, 2000), among many others. Despite these general successes, criminology has largely ignored another construct thought by many to be critical to the understanding of antisocial behavior (ASB) – personality. This is unfortunate because general personality traits have been found to be robust correlates of a wide variety of externalizing/antisocial behaviors including delinquency (e.g., White et al., 1994), criminal behavior (e.g., Miller & Lynam, 2001), substance use (e.g., Flory, Lynam, Milich, Leukefeld, & Clayton, 2002), risky sex (Hoyle, Fejfar, & Miller, 2000), and risky driving (Iversen & Rundmo, 2002).
Limitations and conclusions
Although a concerted effort was undertaken to identify and include all relevant studies, like any meta-analysis, it is possible that some pertinent studies were missed. The consistency between the current findings and those from our previous meta-analysis (despite the fact that there are no overlapping data), however, provides support for the validity and robustness of these findings. Unfortunately, due to understandable constraints (e.g., time; participant burden) many researchers in relevant fields have yet to adopt the use of assessments that allow an examination of these relations at the facet level. As a result our facet level review involved far fewer studies and participants; it is our hope that researchers will move to adopt these measures given their many advantages.
Despite these issues, the current findings offer continued and persuasive evidence that personality is a robust correlate of ASB and aggression. It is our hope that criminologists will work to integrate personality-related constructs into the broader theoretical and empirical efforts. Osgood (1998) suggested that criminology is an interdisciplinary field and, as such should engage in academic thievery by taking concepts and findings from sister disciplines to use as our own. Personality is an excellent construct to abduct. He also proposed that we balance our thievery with charity, sharing what we have learned in criminology with our sister disciplines. By taking this approach, he argues, and we agree, that all fields end up more enriched and informed.
