Ego control and criminal behavior.

Abstract

The personality assessment literature using deviant and antisocial subject populations contains an interesting anomaly-that persons representing major criminal offense categories can be only weakly distinguished from one another by using standard scales of the best conventional inventories (e.g., the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the California Psychological Inventory). This may reflect the fact that existing inventories are designed principally to predict maladjustment or social competence, and most criminal groups tested are found to be equally maladjusted and socially immature. The construct of ego control is not strongly related to adjustment or competence, but rather appears to underlie preference for different lifestyles and occupations. This article demonstrates the ability of ego control to distinguish between the offense categories of murder and drug related crimes. A sample of 59 murderers was found to score significantly higher than a group of 56 drug offenders on a rudimentary measure of ego control. Four distinct lines of research concerning personality and criminal behavior can be identified. The first has investigated differences in the personality structure of criminals and noncriminals. The evidence shows that adjudicated or incarcerated criminals are invariably more impulsive, hostile, selfcentered, and immature than nondelinquent controls (

Clarification of the five-factor model with the Abridged Big Five Dimensional Circumplex.

“…Attempting to place these last four traits o n Factor 111 instead of Factor V appears to have been a way of denying an intellect interpretation of Factor \! Lest the reader think we are picking on McCrae and Costa (1985b), Hogan and Johnson (1981) mislocated the positive emotions cheerful (I+II+) and self-assured (I+IV+) on Factor IV tations of the factors are equally valid or whether certain interpretations are, in some way, more correct or optimal (Goldberg, 1993). Some would regard this question as intractable.…”

“…in our study, for these terms might be ccnceptualized (in a metaphorical sense) as the "elemental essence'' of the f a~t o r .~ Metaphorically, a set of factor-pure terms represents a single-element compound such as Ox, whereas the nonpure terms represent two-element compounds such as H,O (see Hogan. 1983: Hogan & Johnson. 1981.…”

“…T h e former is probably a n aspect of [I], the latter a n aspect of [111]" (p. 196). Hogan (1986: Hogan & Johnson, 1981 was unique among advocates of the F F M in choosing to create separate Factor I scales for ambition and simple sociability. Goldberg (1992) and McCrae and Costa (1985b) assigned the terms hardworking and arnbitiozis to Factor 111.…”

Seven Social Performance Scales for the California Psychological Inventory

“…Like individuals "open to experience" (Costa & McCrae, 1992), they enjoy novelty and variety. The group that best represents low ego control, the marijuana smokers, scored 1.5 standard deviations below the group mean, whereas the murderers scored right at the group mean on CPI-Ego Control (see also Laufer, Johnson, & Hogan, 1981).…”

“…CPI-Ego Control (after Block & Block, 1980; see also Laufer, Johnson, & Hogan, 1981) describes the suppression of primary process (pace Freud) ideation. Because primary process includes impulses toward antisocial activities, Ego Control overlaps with Prudence (Factor 111).…”