A study of psychological (Personality) correlates of criminal behaviour

Pages: 62-66
Dinesh Singh (Department of Psychology, Govt. College, Baund Kalan, Bhiwani, Haryana )
Asha Rani (STI Counsellor, Civil Hospital, Rohtak, Haryana )

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.