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Investigating dark and bright personality dimensions in prisoners compared to a community sample

Fri, September 13, 8:00 to 9:15am, Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest, Floor: Basement, Room 0.11

Abstract

A growing body of research highlights the continuum between dark and bright personality traits impacting individual prosocial or antisocial tendencies. However, the interplay between these traits and actual behavioral manifestations, particularly in vulnerable or antisocial populations such as inmates is not fully elucidated. We aimed to investigate the five Dark Factor Themes and the five Bright personality dimensions, across a general community sample (N = 282) and a large sample of inmates (N = 296) with and without criminal history while controlling for underlying cognitive abilities.
Results indicated an inverse relationship between the dark and the bright personality traits across both populations. Inmates, particularly recidivists, reported overall higher levels of aversive traits such as Callousness, Deceitfulness, Sadism, Vindictiveness, and Neuroticism, compared to the general population, and lower levels of adaptive traits, such as Agreeableness and Extraversion. Surprisingly, Openness was higher in first-time offenders compared to both recidivists and community participants. Narcissistic Entitlement and Conscientiousness did not differentiate between inmates and the general population. The findings highlight the importance of the bright traits as potential protective factors against criminality while highlighting the practical relevance of considering the dark personality dimensions in the risk assessment, prediction, and reduction of criminal behavior.

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