Delinquent Behavior and the Five-Factor Model: Hiding in the Adaptive Landscape?
Author(s): Richard P. Wiebe
Abstract: Is the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality (Big Five) comprehensive? Only two of its dimensions, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, consistently predict criminal offending. FFM attributes may facilitate success in the "adaptive landscape" of a reciprocal society, but crime subverts reciprocity. Other criminogenic traits may involve deception, self deception, and adaptive strategies. With controls, these traits explained 35% and 34% of the variance in offending in multiple regressions using self-reports from college students and prisoners, respectively, and increased explained variance among a second college sample from 26% to 41% beyond sex, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. That some criminogenic traits lie outside the FFM means that the rationality assumption—that laypersons reliably report their own and others' traits—may not hold in the prediction of crime.
Pages: 38-62
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