ANALYSIS OF THE DIFFERENT PSYCHOLOGICAL

THEORIES OF CRIME: A CLOSER LOOK AT THE FIVE

FACTOR MODEL IN ITS RELATION TO CRIMINAL

BEHAVIOUR

PROJECT PAPER – 9TH SEM

RAJIV GANDHI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF LAW, PUNJAB

Submitted By: Submitted To:

Aakash Narwal Mr. Ankit Kaushik
Roll – 17198 Asst. Prof. of Law

10TH NOVEMBER, 2021

RAJIV GANDHI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF LAW, PUNJAB
Analysis of the different psychological theories of crime: A
closer look at the five-factor model of personality in its relation
to criminal behavior
- Aakash Narwal

1. Introduction
To begin with – what is a personality? Here by personality we mean the individual’s
characteristic patterns of behavior which includes feeling, acting and thinking. This
supposedly simple definition has wide ranging implications. Personality refers to the
internal system of thoughts – an internal life of characteristics. This internal life is
reflected outwardly in the form of behavior patterns and actions. Personality manifests
itself in how a person acts, feel, get along with others and behave in stressful situations. It
is shown that personality remains stable along time and place. In this paper our aim is to
show that psychopathy or offending behavior can be understood as a particular kind of
personality. This is of course not something novel as personality research of the past 50
years has been narrowing down on establishing just that although not so explicitly- that
psychopathy is a particular orientation of personalityi.

Crime is a complex human phenomenon that has been present cross culturally across all
countries and time periods, and yet it is not completely understood. The study of crime
and criminal behavior is called criminology which is a wide-ranging discipline for it is
informed by principles of sociology and other non-legal fields, including psychology,
economics, statistics, and anthropology. We believe the problem with criminology has
been the dogmatic approach of strictly separating sociological, psychological and other
views in studying the phenomenon of crime. Study of crime cannot be done in a vacuum
and this has been endorsed by two of the most respected modern criminologists Francis
Cullen and Robert Agnew, who have written that “it has become increasingly clear that
biological factors, individual traits and social factors all have an important role to play in
the explanation of crime”. One of the reasons why the study of personality was shunned
for a long time by criminologists was the deterministic implications of it- for you can
work to change the environmental factors but the individual factors have proved to be
way less malleable to reformation. However, in recent times there have been a steep rise
in the study of crime from the standpoint of personality looked at both empirically and
theoretically. The aim of this paper is to review the linkage between individual traits and
offending and how the interplay between social, environmental and biological factors
exacerbates or influence the individual factors of a personality.

There is a well-established association between personality disorder and offending but

the nature of the relationship is less well understood. Thus, one of the aims of this paper
is to do a systemized review of the relevant literature including empirical Studies,
theoretical research and the many articles published in Sage, Web of Science, APA
PsycNet, Wiley Online Library, and PubMed relating to studies that examine the link
between personality traits and criminal behavior.

All the prominent descriptions of psychopathy have the thread of personality going
through them, right from Cleckley’s classic work on psychopathy in his “The mask of
sanity”ii to Hare’s psychopathy checklist- revised (PCL-R)iii. The former identifies 16
characteristic traits associated with psychopaths including: “superficial charm and good
“intelligence,” absence of “nervousness,” unreliability, untruthfulness and insincerity,
lack of remorse or shame, poor judgment and failure to learn by experience, pathologic
egocentricity and incapacity for love, general poverty in major affective reactions,
unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations, and failure to follow any life plan.
Hare’s model of psychopathy thereafter improves greatly on the Cleckley’s introducing
20 criteria linked to psychopathy. These 20 characteristics can be further divided into 2
sets, the first set includes the interpersonal and affective aspects of psychopathy
(pathological lying, megalomania or grandiose sense of self-worth, manipulative/
Machiavellianism, superficial charm, lack of responsibility, empathy and compassion as
well as a lack of guilt or shame). The second set includes the traits most closely
associated with anti- social personality like lack of self-control, impulsivity, poor
behavioural conduct, juvenile delinquency, criminal versatility etc.

Personality and crime have been linked in two general ways. First, in “personality-trait
psychology” certain traits or super traits within a structured model of personality may be
linked to antisocial behavior (ASB). Here we will primarily focus on the five-factor
iv
model and the PEN model.v The second way that personality theorists have linked
personality to crime is through “personality-type psychology”vi or by asserting that
certain deviant, abnormal individuals possess a criminal personality, labeled
psychopathic, sociopathic, or antisocial.

It has been postulated that certain personality traits are linked with aggression,
criminality and malevolence. These theoretical assumptions have been repeatedly proved
to be legitimate when empirically tested. It should be noted that personality assessment
has established its usefulness in predicting and identifying criminal patterns of behavior.
Criminologists had a very shaky knowledge of psychopathic and anti-social behavior
before the inception of personality theories which have also greatly enhanced the
understanding of how an individual acts in a given situation and make decisions under
strain. It has also been established that a minority of criminals commit the maximum of
crimes which suggests the possibility of identifying the peculiar personality most inclined
to repeat offending and thereafter looking after these personalities for a long period of
time so as to curb the crime recidivism.

Critical concerns that have been raised by criminologists against personality theories and
their implications will be reviewed. Recent advances in personality theory research will
be detailed in response to those specific methodological concerns, including current
research findings regarding the link between personality and antisocial behavior.
Personality theory’s future application to the pursuit of knowledge regarding criminals
and crime will be explored and avenues for integrated theory and research suggested. The
important role of any science is to formulate or identify a problem and then work towards
how can that problem be pragmatically tackled so finally we will look at how these
psychological theories of personality can work at reduction of crime and criminal
recidivism. Does the combination of empirical and theoretical research in the field of
personality points to any promising risk reduction opportunities?

In summations the following research questions will be pursued in the paper-

a. How the major psychological traits are associated with criminal behavior
(particular emphasis on the Big five factor model and Hans Eyesenk’s PEN
model)?

b. How personality traits identify psychopathic and anti-social behavior and their
connection with crime recidivism?

c. What are the concerns regarding policy implications and theoretical implications
of personality theories and how personality theorists have responded to these
criticisms?

d. What are the practical implications of personality theories in terms of reduction of

crime, rehabilitation of criminals (both anti- social personalities and juvenile
delinquents) and predicting of criminal behavior beforehand?

e. What is the potential future of psychological and personality theories

2. Structural models of personality (PEN and FFM)

Looking at psychopathy it can be said that it is a personality or at least a peculiar

orientation of personality traitsvii. This is cemented by applying the big five model of
personality which is one of the structural models of personality. The Big Five pertains to
the study of individual psychological traits based on the assumption that a) The traits are
the constituting elements of a personality b) there are limited number of traits c) traits
represent the full picture of a person. There are many advantages of applying these
models both in the fields of psychology and criminology. They were constructed by
scientific minds to investigate and catalogue the particular traits of the many personalities
so as to understand the basic building blocks which constitute the internal life of a person.
Secondly they have strong scientific mindset behind them which is not worried about
establishing connections or conclusions but to understand traits, lastly these structural
models have been used and verified both in empirical setting as well as in their practical
implications.

The most prominent structural models of personality are the Hans Eyesenk’s PEN
(Psychoticism, Extroversion and Neuroticism) model, Tellegen’s three factor model and
the Big Five or the five factor model. The three factor in Eyesenk’s model includes
Extroversion, Psychoticism and Neuroticismviii. Eyesenk’s model is one of the few that
works to directly link psychopathic behaviour with criminality and the identification of
repeat offenders. Neuroticism relates to adjustment and emotionality (positive and
negative), extroversion relates to communality and social adaptability whereas
psychoticism relates to empathy (or lack thereof), egocentricity and impulsivity.
Criminological studies shows that high in psychoticism and neuroticism relates to lack of
interpersonal warmth, lack of empathy, impulsivity which directly correlates to juvenile
delinquency. Tellegen’s model has three factors as well- one is positive emotionality
which deals with how a person deals with or adapts to the need of people around, second
is negative emotionality which pertains to how a person deals with negative emotions like
stress, pain, anxiety and strain. The third component is constraint which indicates a
person’s level of self control and his ability to forestall instant gratification in place of
long term goal achievement.

The Five factor model or the big five was derived lexicallyix i.e through the study of
language (English) in its relation to the contributing internal structure (traits or the
building blocks of personality). The five factors include- Extroversion, neuroticism,
openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. People who are high in agreeableness are
more cordial to the interests of other people and display empathy whereas people low on
agreeableness (i.e high in disagreeableness) show contempt for other people and are more
single minded in their pursuits often being arrogant and manipulative. Extroversion refers
to the ability of a person to socialize and the capacity to entertain positive emotions.
Neuroticism is the proclivity to experience negative emotions, hence people who score
high in neuroticism are more likely to experience pronounced levels of sadness and
anxiety. Conscientiousness pertains to controlling of impulses and the ability to restrain
oneself from gravitating towards instant gratifications. People who are high in
conscientiousness work towards maintaining stability and can pursue long term goals by
sacrificing short term pleasures. It is one of the two factors (other being intelligence) that
can predict long term success, hence people who score low on conscientiousness are
more likely to indulge in the practices of impulsive pleasures foregoing or ignoring any
long term consequences that can result from that. The fifth factor openness refers to the
openness to experience, cultural knowledge, philosophical ideas and creativityx.

One can immediately notice that despite being created differently and accommodating
distinct number of traits all of the above models show great similarity across their
structural model. The commonality among all three models is the inclusion of 1)
Neuroticism (negative emotionality) and 2) extroversion (positive emotionality). In both
Tellegen’s model and the big five there is a similar component regarding the control of
impulses and adoption of cultural values. Conscientiousness in the big five and constraint
in Tellegen’s. However there is no such distinctive factor regarding control of impulses
in the Eyesenk’s model- one can still sense its presence. It is made clear that
Psychoticism is a combination of low conscientiousness and low agreeableness. All three
include the component of agreeableness. This shows that the three structures are not
completely isolated from each other but hold key elements of commonality between each
otherxi.

In fact it was argued by Clarck and Watson that –

“the Big Three and Big Five models define a common “Big Four” space in which (a) two
traits are equivalent (Neuroticism and Extraversion), (b) the third Big Three dimension
(Constraint or Psychoticism) represents some combination of two Big Five factors
(Conscientiousness and Agreeableness), and (c) the final Big Five trait (Openness, or
imagination) is excluded.”

3. The linkage between the Five factor model and psychopathy

First of all we shall answer this pertinent question- Why the preference of FFM over
other structural models. There are multiple factors- First of all FFM presents around 30
components of personality over the 11 factors of multidimensional personality
questionnaire and the the three factors of the PEN model. This provides a wide ranging
variety in the wholescale study of personality. Second is that FFM enjoys a wide ranging
approval through both empirical studies and practical application across data collected by
self, family/spouse and peersxii. So it includes not only the assessment by the individual
but also his friend’s and family’s perception of him- making FFM a holistic approach to
study personalityxiii. Third is that FFM has been employed cross culturally to achieve the
same conclusions and hence dismisses the criticism regarding its eurocentricism.
Fourthly this model has been successfully employed to draw linkages between
personality with academic performance, romantic relationships, mental health and
general positive disposition. With regards to connecting psychopathy and personality i.e
behavioural patterns most aligned to offending has been performed through meta-
analytical reviews of the relevant studies to draw linkages with juvenile delinquency,
criminal recidivism, substance abuse and sexual abusexiv. The most important reason
other than the research material in support of the big five model is the magnitude of
research flowing out from the application of this model. This model has been used by
researchers in following a personality and its traits though a long period of time and
space. They have noted the correlation between the individual traits and how they blend
with age, gender, socio- economic culture etc. Another reason is that there is massive
research available regarding personality and psychopathy which has been accrued
through the application of the big five model.xv

Based on the five factor model psychopathy is identified mainly to two factors which are
agreeableness and conscientiousness with neuroticism playing a secondary role. Research
suggests that psychopaths score low in conscientiousness leading them to be more
impulsive and less attentive to the punishment aspect of their behaviour and seem to
ignore any negative repercussions that can come out of their impulsivity. They also seem
to score low in agreeableness which pinpoints to lack of empathy, compassion and
hostility towards others. The lack of self-control (low in conscientiousness) directly
demonstrates the element of repeat offending in psychopaths who also dabble in multiple
kinds of crime and are more likely to go back into their criminalistics patterns after
getting out of prisons. It is important to add that there is also a line of argument that base
psychopathy on biological grounds. Recent studies show that there is huge correlative
evidence between an ill formed prefrontal cortexxvi and psychopathic behaviour that can
be associated with genetics which when compounded with environmental factors give
rise to psychopathic behavioural patternsxvii. It was shown by Cuhan that psychopathic
traits remain constant throughout life and seem to effects both the interpersonal
relationship of the individual and his emotional and behavioural characteristics. It was
also shown that men are more likely to be psychopaths compared to women. Also a
prisoner who scores high in the Hare psychopathy checklist (PCL-R) is more likely to go
back to his previous ways of committing crimes and living a life of a hoodlum
immediately after getting out of prison as compared to those who score low on the PCL-
R checklist. A person like that is also less likely to form close bond with another
individual and is prone to take advantage of people who appears to care for him- even
lashing out suggesting a lack of control over temperxviii.

A new line of research has highlighted that the majority of psychopaths resides in prison
as compared to general population (taken in ratios). Only 1% of the total population seem
to show psychopathic characteristics whereas about 15- 20% of prison population
demonstrate actions that are termed to be psychopathic in naturexix. Since psychopathic
characteristics appear very early in life one can see those individuals getting into the life
of crime at a very early stage in their life. Juvenile Delinquency and adult male
aggression have deep psychopathic origins and it appears through the application of
research in psychology, neurology, neuroscience, psychiatry and criminology that serious
juvenile delinquents who show signs of psychopathy spend most of their life moving
from one prison to another most probably because they don’t seem to accommodate the
sense of right and wrong or the systems controlling the cues of pleasure, pain and
punishment. Recent discoveries in neuroscience even pinpoints to a rather despondent
conclusion-that psychopathic behaviour is closely related to deformities in the pre-frontal
cortex and the possibility of deformity in the amygdala which governs the decision
making capacity of a humanxx. This leads to the stultification or impairment of the
decision making which leads to social malfunctioning, lack of self-control and higher
likeliness of engaging in socially unacceptable or criminal behaviourxxi.
 4. The advantages of using FFM to study psychopathy in relation to criminology

The wide ranging research that demonstrate the correlation between psychopathy and
antisocial/ criminal behaviour both theoretically and empirically has piqued the interest
of criminologists in studying psychopathy through the lens of personality. It was
famously put by Delisi that psychopathy should be studied as a unified theory of crime.
In his words – “it is the embodiment of the pejorative essence of antisocial behaviour”xxii.
We have already mentioned the research that showed how the large number of crimes is
done by a minority of criminals. These criminals who dabble in multiple crimes
constantly are termed as “career criminals”xxiii. Research has also shown that personality
assessment tools like FFM have proved to be extremely efficient in identifying these
career criminals. The so called career criminals who are very few but prolific in their
career of crime are found to be better understood from the study of psychopathic
individual traits. Furthermore there is a 70 to 80 percent chance of correctly predicting if
a certain individual is on his path to become a career criminal from the assessment of
psychopathic traitsxxiv.

One of the persisting criticisms against using psychopathy to understand the causation
behind criminality is that most psychopathy assessment models have an inbuilt element
of predictor- criterion i.e an explicit measure that points toward anti-social behaviour. So
the predictive measures include one type of anti- social behaviour indicator to predict
another kind of indicator of anti- social activity. For example in the PCL-R checklist
some indicators are blatantly explicit in finding out anti-social behaviour like juvenile
delinquency, petty crimes, signs of criminality at an early age etc. which are accessed by
the interviewer at the time of interview. This creates a sort of biased data collection in
which the task of interview solely depends upon finding out acts signifying anti-social
behaviour to find out the score of the interviewee on the psychopathy checklist. Another
example of this criterion-predictive bias can be seen where the sole act of lashing out or
an act of anger is subsumed to score a point on the psychopathy checklist under lack of
self-control or to rate the interviewee as lacking in proper behavioural conduct.
It is important to understand that the above problem of making explicit measures for
addressing psychopathic behaviour resulting in criterion-selection bias does not appear in
the Five factor modelxxv which totally relies upon trying to find out how the subject
thinks, feels, acts and conducts rather than to find out if he has stolen a bike when he was
fourteen or other such explicit anti-social act so as to determine if he is an anti-social
personality.

5. Concerns regarding theoretical and policy implications of personality theories

a. Biological Determinism

Psychologists like Hans Eyesenk embedded his personality theory deep into biological
factors. According to his theory the arousal levels of a person depends upon the trait
extroversion and the trait psychoticism is directly correlated to levels of testosterone in a
person. Since male aggression is connected to testosterone- anyone who is high in trait
psychoticism is likely to indulge in offending behaviour. This theory initiated an intense
debate among criminologists about the possible biological origins of criminal behaviour.
This has created a rift among criminologists where one flank associate crime to social and
economic factors and the other with the deeply embedded psychobiological structure of a
human beingxxvi.

To understand the criticisms put forth against biological origins of crime one has to go
into the history of the discipline of study of crime i.e criminology. Criminology is a
peculiar subject since it draws inspiration from myriad places In its pursuit to understand
crime and its origins. It is a sort of fusion of multiple disciplines and this hybridization
causes deep divide and intense debatesxxvii among the scholars of this field but there is
one fundamental supposition that is agreed upon by almost every criminologist- that
crime has psychobiological roots.

If one dives deep into the thought of the founding members of criminology one finds that
they were actively taking support and help of psychiatrists to understand the problem of
crime as a peculiar manifestation of an ailing mind or intellect moving away from the
medieval notion that a criminal was possessed by some evil deity or dark powers to
commit crime.

However the schism happened with the arrival of enlightenment in the 19th century which
brought with it slew of ideas one of them being that since nature is governed by particular
laws it could be very probably that even societies or group of people are acting under the
influence of an undercurrent of rules and laws for its proper functioningxxviii. Rule and
laws which many people were unconscious of. This idea sharply divided the
criminological faction into two distinct groups- one group advocated that these rules and
laws were culturally and socially driven and administered. The other group laid emphasis
that the seat of these laws and rules were individualistic and psychological.

One faction represent the 19th century positivist movement which focussed chiefly on the
societal and geographical factors influencing crime rates mainly taking industrialisation
and metropolitanism as decisive factors in influencing crime. The famous criminologists
in the positive school of thought were Quetelet and Guerry. A the foundation of their
work was the contention that individual will does not exist, that an individual is but a
chess piece being moved by external societally driven circumstances. “Society prepares
crime and the criminal is only the instrument that executes them”xxix.

However the most important criminologist of the positivist era was Cesare Lombroso
who posited that the criminal mind is a sick mind- that is criminality is closely associated
to a lower level of orientation due to some biological defect (brain damage or hereditary).
That their natural growth was stultified due to some pregnancy issue or natural deformity
of the brain. But as time passed Lombroso’s work was removed from the discussion
surrounding around individualistic and psychological origins of crime. This was due to
his work’s connection with biological determinism that presumably became the backdrop
to Nazi ideology and hence was completely shunned later on by criminologists who went
on to establish the sociologically inclined theories of crime. The individualistic approach
was thereafter completely shinned from academic discourse and became a taboo to talk
aboutxxx.
 b. Anxiety around policy implications

Around this historical backdrop given above developed multiple concerns around ethical
and moral grounds. Social scientist of the time were afraid that personality assessment
will enforce policy recommendations like drug treatment, medical interventions or other
such tyrannical restriction forced around deterministic individual assessment. The
potential stigmatizing of words like psychopathic, anti-social, sociopaths would lead to
handing harsher sentencesxxxi.

The major criticism directed against personality theorist is that they rely heavily on the
individual traits that shapes a dysfunctional personality rather than the effect that
environmental factors can have in creating a criminal mindxxxii. The actual concern was
that this excessive focus on the individual’s psychology could lead policy
implementations which would ignore to rectify the societal or environmental factors that
are conducive to criminal behavior.

6. Response to the above criticisms by personality theorists

As with the progression of research- personality theories gradually distanced itself from
biological determinism by focusing more on the interplay between environ and
personality. Even Eyesenk who has been accused of basing a theory solely on biological
determinism dismisses that sentiment and goes on to say that a disposition to crime can
be inherited but still only gets activated under certain environmental stressors.

“There is no predestination about the fact that heredity, mediated through personality,
plays some part in predisposing some people to act in an anti-social manner. Environment
is equally important ... the interaction between the two is perhaps the most crucial
factor”xxxiii

Criminologists like Moffitt also concurred with Hans Eysenk by saying that Crime
recidivists are not particularly trait driven or environmentally/societally driven but from a
constant interplay between individual traits and environmental factors which work as
activation agent to the personal traitsxxxiv. To the concern that too much focus on
personality theories would lead to ignorance of social problems- very much the opposite,
the emphasis of personality theories upon the interplay between environmental and
individual factors have given a great impetus to the development of research to study the
implication of personality assessment involving peer groups, families, school system,
broader society etcxxxv. It has been established that a dysfunctional child is the result of
dysfunctional parenting (parental abuse, over attachment and interpersonal fights between
parents) it is also more likely that a child who is not oriented properly in the world due to
negligence on the part of parents to provide discipline and care, that the child will
probably deviate at some point to the life of criminal offendingxxxvi.

7. Concerns surrounding methodology of personality assessments

Other than the fears surrounding the potential harm or damage that personality
assessment can cause on policy implementations and prevalent morality, there is the
concern around the methodology applied by personality theorists in researchxxxvii.
Researching into the individual traits was considered by many as a circle-jerk of
displacing blame on the individualxxxviii. A dysfunctional person commits crime because
of his dysfunctionality, blaming criminals for their own criminal tendencies. We have
already talked about the criterion- selection bias that pervades through the different
personality theories. Early research in personality was taken to task by many
criminologists who considered that there were serious faults regarding sample selection,
reliability of measuring individual traits, the connection between criminality and
individual traits and the validity of assessment testsxxxix.

The early criticisms put forth against personality research identified a tautological
problem that the a delinquent personality was assessed on the specific criteria which
explicitly centered on establishing delinquency. As the assessment tests were made in
such a way that intended to limit a person as either a delinquent or a non- delinquent-
bypassing the research myriad of traits that constitute complexity of a personality.

Criticisms levelled in relation to biased sample selection were due to the usage of a
prisoned population which only indicated a sample size that was already identified and
sentenced. The matter of fact that the characteristics of a non-detected criminals could
have been different than those of the detected was not taken into account or were
considered to be of scrupulous nature.

8. How Personality research has grown to overcome its weaknesses

The new research in the field of personality assessment and its relation to anti-social
behavior by Lynam and Miller suggests that the above discussed problems have been
gradually dealt with and have been overcome. Lynam and Miller concluded that the
structural systems of individual traits was adequately tested and practically applied after
conducting a meta review of the past studies of personality and Anti-social behavior.
They posited that modern personality assessment “warrant confidence in their reliability
and validity”.xl

We have already discussed how the five factor model solved the problem of tautology by
focusing on how a person thinks, feels, acts and behave to assess his personality traits and
relation to psychopathy rather than looking for explicit behavioral patterns and past
actions to prove his anti-social tendencies. On the other hand Miller and Lynam solved
the tautological problem by taking the criterion- selection into account only in regards to
establishing delinquency rather than individual traitsxli.

By looking at the myriad research involving the linkage between personality traits and
offending behavior (ASB) between the period of 1963 to 2000 through a meta analytic
review based on the above discussed three structural models of personality (FFM, PEN
and Tellegen’s) it was found out that the three measures closely related to anti-social
behavior were Psychoticism, impulsivity and agreeableness. In summation of the this
widespread research – the research points that personalities low in agreeableness and low
in conscientiousness were more likely to indulge in offending behaviorxlii.

The most important indicator seems to be of Impulsivity or low conscientiousness

interms of five factor model. The advancement in neuroscience and the study of brain
suggests that there is a connection between pre-frontal lobe and decision making. So a
poor development of brain would lead to impulsivity and lack of perceiving the
detrimental consequences of one’s actions. This would lead to poor performance in
academics and higher chance of dropping out of school and college. Even the major
sociologists of the time (Hirschi and Gottfredson) have posited that people differ from
each other in their propensity to indulge in criminal activities suggesting low level of self
control or higher impulsivity. This can be easily connected to insufficient parental care as
self control is a trait that is inculcated in the child through his relationship with his
parentsxliii.

The socialization of a child happens in his first 8 years through the intervention of
parentally imposed discipline which later develops the ability to control oneself, as put by
Hirschi- “the tendency to delay short-term gain for long-term personal and collective
interests”. The connection between lack of self-control (impulsivity ) and crime has been
empirically verified across multiple age groups, gender, cultures, groups and time
periods. The trait empathy has also been linked to criminal activities and those who score
low on empathy are more likely to show anti-social behavior although empirical evidence
to show are not wholly conclusive. The psychopathy checklist of Hare even though still
faces the tautological problem remains to consistently show the link between
psychopathy and crime recidivism and offending. Hare in 1993 after conducting his
widespread research on psychopathy and crime estimated that more than half of all
criminal activities are committed by psychopaths who thereafter constitutes the majority
serious offenders including serial rapists, wife-beaters and other such violent criminals.
This estimation of Hare is harmonious with the recent research that the majority of crimes
are done by a minority of all criminals.

9. The future of personality theories and their practical implications

There are other psychosocial theories of crime like the self-control theory which shares a
lot of ground with personality theories. Even Agnew’s General strain theory emphasizes
on how personal characteristics when exposed to environmental factors orient a person to
move ahead in a life of crime. Agnew suggests that- “life strains by causing, influencing,
and interacting with negative emotions, aggressive personality traits, and criminogenic
social learning are predicted to result in dysfunctional coping, such as delinquent
behaviors”xliv.

Agnew predicted that- “crime is more likely when goal blockage is perceived as unjust
and when the gap between goals and achievements is high in magnitude and the resulting
“anger and frustration energize the individual for action, lower inhibitions, and create a
desire for revenge”. From this brief overview of GST, it is evident that there exists the
potential for research regarding the interaction of certain strains with personality traits,
such as agreeableness and conscientiousness”

Recent research in behavioral science proposes that youths who are ignored by their
immediate societal network are more likely to be oppressed by bullies and threatened to a
live a life of a victim. This opens up the avenue of research in identifying the personality
traits of a bullying mentality which appears to target those who appear to be victims of
their circumstances. People low in agreeableness tend to indulge in peer enforced
bullying of those very high in agreeablenessxlv.

Menard and Huizinga concluded that “these youth do not experience only one or several
separate incidents of victimizations, but endure repeated and multiple victimizations, as if
repeat victims comprise their own crime hot spot”. In their research in finding familial
conditions that influences juvenile delinquents, Fisher posited that a vulnerable mindset
remains constant across a long period of time. “From such research findings, it is evident
that there is potential for further investigation into the function of personality traits, even
a positive trait such as agreeableness, and their possible interactions with target suitability
and victim risk.”

Research in the white collar crime through the lens of personality also shows that
psychopaths may thrive in white collar crime through their hard working and emotionless
demeanor. They are easily mistaken to be of the leadership kind – appears to be high in
conscientiousness, low in agreeableness and generally lack dignity.

Childhood vulnerabilities are considered to be resultant of maternal drug use, poor

nutrition, exposure to toxins, and deprivation of affectionxlvi Moffitt (2007) predicted
higher prevalence of delinquency among ethnic minorities due to an increased likelihood
of experiencing predicted risk markers (i.e., poor prenatal care, exposure to toxins, family
adversity), which minorities are subjected to at elevated levels due to poverty and
institutionalized discrimination. Moffitt (2006) also emphasized that- “importance of the
prevention of entrapment of adolescents in detrimental snares, such as incarceration, teen
pregnancy, or drug addiction. Therefore, policy implications generated from personality
theory have not been limited to interventions at the individual level, but policy
recommendations have been multi-dimensional, including interventions at the family,
school, and community levels”

10. Introduction

A thorough review of the contemporary research around personality theory in relation to

criminality, its future implications and its current standing suggests that there is much for
criminology to acquire from the burgeoning field of personality. We have already
covered how personality theory has overcome many of its past criticisms surrounding
biological determinism, biased sample selection, improper assessment devices and other
such weaknesses and have transformed itself into a formidable tool for the evaluation of
the criminal mind. The study of personality has activated the avenues of further research
into why and how someone is predisposed to a life of crime, how such individuals could
be identified and what life circumstances could trigger the particular traits associated with
psychopathy. As put in by Joan Reid- “Past criticisms regarding debatable deterministic
predispositions and weak research methodologies have been sufficiently overcome and
cutting-edge technologies available to researchers offer new opportunities to investigate
the role of individual traits in offending, recidivism, and even victimization toward the
goal of reducing crime and its harmful effects. The study of traits may elucidate why
certain individual react to life strain by offending, why particular individuals are targets
of crime, and why psychopathic offenders choose particular avenues of crime”.

As specifically for the Five factor model there is multitude of research not only
supporting and validating this model but there are multiple fields of research emerging
out of it. By applying the research emanating from the five factor model into studying
psychopathy we can come to a better understanding of assessment and further treatment
of these individuals. Multiple research are underway to understand trait
conscientiousnessxlvii, neuroticismxlviii, negative emotions, shame, guilt, sadness and how
these induce actions and behavioral patterns are connected to the underlying biology. To
the extent that these wide research could emerge and then brought together, there could
appear a far better comprehension of what we mean when we use the term ‘psychopathy’.
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