Questioning the Utility of Negative Emotionality: Latent Class Profiles of Emotional Traits Related to Offending

• In Event: Internalizing Problems, Attitudes, and the Development of Criminal Behavior

Abstract

Multiple theories of criminal and/or antisocial behavior highlight the importance of negative emotionality (e.g., Agnew’s general strain theory, DeLisi and Vaughn’s recently introduced temperament theory of antisocial behavior), yet empirical support for the relationship between negative emotionality and offending is inconsistent. Drawing on evidence from personality and psychopathology literature, this paper argues that inconsistency in empirical findings is partially due to imprecise concepts in criminological theories. Advancing our understanding of how emotional traits are implicated in offending depends on the abandonment of the broad concept of negative emotionality and the adoption of a more nuanced understanding of how the co-occurrence of specific emotional traits is related to antisocial and criminal behavior. In line with this argument, this study uses person-centered analysis (latent class analysis) to identify clusters of individuals who vary based on their emotional trait profiles. Linking these profiles to offending behavior will provide further evidence that individuals high on one emotional trait (e.g. fear) are not necessarily high on others (e.g., anger) and emotional traits in isolation do not predict offending as well as specific constellations of emotional traits.

Author

• Kara Valentina Hannula, Arizona State University