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Immoral Judgement, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Criminal Behaviour

Department of Criminology, Ramat Gan 52100, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

Avraham Leslau

Department of Criminology, Bar-Ilan University Israel

The present article examines delinquent behaviour by integrating two approaches which have heretofore been employed separately—Eysenck's theory linking delinquency to extraversion and neuroticism and Kohlberg's theory of moral development and its connection to moral behaviour. It analyses the relations between extraversion, neuroticism and moral judgement—as well as their independent and/or interactive effect upon the development of anti-social behaviour. The relationships are tested via retrospective measurements of personality traits and moral judgement in three groups: delinquency (N= 203), control (N= 82) and comparative (N= 407) groups.

Findings indicate that criminals are higher than control subjects on neuroticism and immoral judgement but not on extraversion. Similar relationships were found between criminals and the comparative group. The implications of these results for the differential development of anti-social behaviour is discussed.

International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 34, No. 1, 1-13 (1990)
DOI: 10.1177/0306624X9003400102


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