A Study of Psychological (Personality) Correlates of Criminal Behaviour

The present investigation was made to study the psychological (personality) correlates of criminal behaviour. The objectives of the study were to compare criminals and non-criminals on different personality variables/traits and to identify the discriminant variables of criminality. It was hypothesized that criminals would score higher on extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism and subsequently on all the personality traits (EPP-SV6) For the sudy of psychological correlates of criminal behaviour two group design was adopted group I (n = 100) consisting of criminals and group II (n=100) consisting of non-criminals (normal subjects). Criminals were inmates of District Jail, Rohtak under section 302 and 307 and non-criminals from general population. The two groups consisted of 25-35 years old, semi-literate from rural as well as urban background. They were matched on sociodemographic variables. Eysenck Personality Profiler Short (EPPS-V6) Hindi translation was used to measure the personality variables/traits. The data were analyzed by employing t-test and two group discriminant to identify the psychological personality correlates of criminality. It was found that criminals were significantly higher than non-criminals on all the personality traits as per EPP-SV6. The major discriminant factors of criminality were unhappiness, anxiety, inferiority, risk taking, irresponsibility, assertiveness and impulsiveness in that order.