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. Copyright (C) 1996 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry.