The Longitudinal Relationships between Low Self-Control, Big Five Traits, and Adolescent Deviance: Revisiting this Spuriousness Thesis

• In Event: Exploring the Role of Self-Control in Offending

Abstract

The current study sought to rigorously test whether Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) are only spuriously related to deviance once low self-control is considered. Very little previous research has rigorously tested this question using longitudinal data, permitting an efficient test of the spuriousness thesis by Gottfredson and Hirschi. Self-reported, longitudinal data were collected from N = 569 Czech early adolescents from the general population (58.6% female; Mage = 12.9 years, SD=0.66) on five occasions, six months apart. A path model was tested which hypothesized Time 1 low self-control (operationalized by both impulsivity and impulse control) to predict Time 2 deviance, while the five Big Five traits were hypothesized to predict developmental changes in deviance at Time 3; the model also included measures of deviance at Times 4 and 5. Results provided evidence of significant effects by Time 1 low self-control on Time 2 deviance; they also showed that the Big Five traits were unrelated to subsequent developmental changes in deviance at Time 3 (a competing model testing the reverse also provided support, where low self-control was predictive of Time 3 changes in deviance). Thus, the present study provides empirical support for the hypothesized spuriousness thesis.

Authors

• Seyede Leila Moosavi, University of Kentucky

• Shabnam Ghorbani Kalkhajeh, University of Kentucky

• Marek Blatney, Masaryk University

• Alexander Thomas Vazsonyi, University of Kentucky