The Relationship Between the Five-Factor Model of Personality and Offending Across the Life-Course

• In Event: Recent Results from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development

Abstract

Research has consistently linked the five-factor model (FFM) or ‘Big Five’ to a range of behavioural outcomes, including antisocial behaviour and offending. Three of the five factors, namely, Agreeableness (altruism, modesty), Conscientiousness (self-discipline, modesty) and Neuroticism (anxious depressed), have consistently been identified as important for explaining the prevalence of offending. However, very little is known about the relationship between personality and other important criminal career features such as the onset, frequency and duration. This paper uses data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD), a prospective longitudinal study of 411 boys follow-up from age 8 to age 48, to examine the extent to which the FFM predicts these criminal career features independently of parental, social, socioeconomic and school risk factors. Limitations, directions for future research, and implications for interventions to reduce offending are discussed.

Authors

• Darrick Jolliffe, University of Greenwich

• David Farrington, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge