From Traits to Traps: How Personality Drives Situation Selection and Short-Term Mindsets

• In Event: Lightning Talk: Crime and the Body: Biological, Psychological, and Emotional Considerations

Abstract

Why do some individuals repeatedly make short-sighted decisions that spiral into crime or addiction? We outline a multilevel framework tracing how personality traits translate into delinquency through Short-Term Mindsets—a context-sensitive tendency to prioritize immediate gratification over long-term benefits. We conceptualize short-term mindsets as dynamic, situationally activated mindsets that emerge through ongoing person–environment transactions. Two pathways are highlighted. First, certain individuals may be more likely to select into—and perceive—weakly regulated situations (e.g., risky leisure settings, deviant peer groups) as more attractive, a process we refer to as personality-based situation selection. Such situation selection and perception increase the likelihood that momentary short-term mindsets will arise. Second, once short-term mindsets are activated, they further bias attention toward immediate rewards and foster situational choices that sustain immediate gratification and delinquent behaviors, forming a self-reinforcing cycle. Integrating personality science with criminology, this framework positions delinquency as the emergent outcome of recursive processes linking traits, situations, and structural environments

Authors

• Ranran Li, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law

• Reinout De Vries, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

• Jean-Louis van Gelder, Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law