Personality and self-reported delinquency: a longitudinal analysis

This study assessed the personality factors associated with self-reported delinquency. Respondents were 282 14-year-olds who were traced for follow-up 2 years later. The follow-up success rate was more than 80%. In line with previous work which has adopted a trait personality perspective to understanding antisocial and delinquent behaviours, it was predicted that psychoticism, extroversion, and low self-esteem as measured at Time 1 would be significant predictors of self-reported delinquency at Time 2. However, the results of structural equation modelling suggested that the three personality variables explained just over 16% of the variance of delinquency at Time 1, but only 6.61% of the variance of delinquency at Time 2. Alone, psychoticism explained 15.3% of the variance of delinquency at Time 1, but only 4.36% of the variance of delinquency at Time 2. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed and some suggestions for future research are made.