Role of self-control, aggression and cognitive distortion in criminal behavior

Pages: 425-428
Kalpna Thakur (Department of Psychology, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh)

The present paper is aimed to investigate if psychological traits are significant correlates of criminal behaviour. This paper takes into account three psychological traits which are self-control, aggression and cognitive distortion and efforts are made to find out if these psychological traits anyways contributetoin dividual’s engagement in criminal behaviour. The sample comprised 73 prisoners of Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. The data were collected from 6 police stations situated in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh after taking permission from the head of the police station. The analysis of data revealed that Low Self-Control (r=-.636**), Aggression (r=.694**) and Cognitive Distortion (r=.611**) have significant positive correlation with criminal behaviour. Aggression has turned out to be the best predictor that explained the highest variance (48%) followed by Low Self-Control (17%) and Cognitive Distortion (3%). Together these predictors accounted for 68% of the total variance, which concludes that it is crucial to understand the role of these traits and in-depth understanding of each psychological trait in relation to criminal behaviour offers an opportunity to the public at large to expand their knowledge on the importance of practicing and equipping oneself with healthy psychological traits to abstain from criminal and delinquent acts.