Low Self-Control Versus the Desire-For-Control: An Empirical Test of White-Collar Crime and Conventional Crime

The Effects of Low Self-Control and Desire-for-Control on White-Collar Offending: A Replication

“…They define crime as any act of force or fraud that satisfies one's self-interest (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990:15). As such, the authors contend that their theory is highly generalizable and argue that offenders will be 1 Although Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) did not view self-control as a personality trait, others commonly treat it as such (Piquero et al 2005;Schoepfer et al 2014;Simpson and Piquero 2002).…”

“…Instead, he argued that whitecollar crime is learned through interaction with others (Sutherland 1947). However, scholars have found personality characteristics are relevant in explaining white-collar crime (Berry et al 2007;Blickle et al 2006;Collins and Schmidt 1993;Marcus and Schuler 2004;Piquero et al 2005;Schoepfer, Piquero, and Langton 2014).…”

“…This interaction effect is particularly interesting as it indicates low selfcontrol may increase the criminogenic effect of other personality traits. In order to further understand this interaction effect, the current study seeks to replicate and extend the Schoepfer et al (2014) study by assessing the role of self-control (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990) and desire-for-control (Burger and Cooper 1979) on three types of offending. Specifically, the ability for these personality characteristics to predict intentions to engage in shoplifting, embezzlement, and credit card fraud will be investigated.…”

“…This allows us to have increased certainty in the veracity of our theories about criminal behavior. This study also offers an extension of the prior literature as it utilizes a different sample from the Schoepfer et al (2014) study and includes one additional form of individualistic white-collar crime to assess the robustness of the interaction effect.…”

White Collar Crime: Recidivism, Deterrence, and Social Impact

“…It was clear that "situational factors alone cannot explain white collar crime" [17]. Not only do white collar criminals perceive themselves as non-criminals and non-threatening, but studies show that white collar crimes tend to be committed by those with a desire for control, whereas violent crimes tend to be committed by persons with low self-control [18]. While the difference between these two motivations is not huge across white collar vs. violent crime, desire for control is shown to be a stronger predictor for corporate crime than low self-control.…”