Heaven (key study) (criminal)

Question 1

What was the background?

Answer 1

There was strong evidence that personality variables were associated with criminal behaviour.

Question 2

What was the hypothesis?

Answer 2

Measures of psychoticism, extraversion, and self esteem would be significant predictors for self reported delinquency.

Question 3

What was the design?

Answer 3

Longitudinal

Question 4

How was it longitudinal?

Answer 4

At time 1: students were tested for psychoticism, extraversion, and self esteem
At time 2: students self reported their delinquency

Question 5

What was the sample?

Answer 5

• 282 adolescents (146 females and 136 males)
• From 2 Catholic independent schools
• In New South Wales, Australia
• Ages ranging from 13-15 yrs when the study began

Question 6

What were the materials?

Answer 6

• A test booklet at times 1 and 2 testing:
  psychoticism and extraversion
  self esteem
  self reported delinquency

Question 7

What was the procedure?

Answer 7

• The questionnaires were checked for internal reliability
• Participants were followed up after 2 years, with 80% responding

Question 8

What were the ethical considerations?

Answer 8

• Self report surveys were completed anonymously
• Participants had the right to withdraw

Question 9

What were the results?

Answer 9

• Males were more likely to engage in delinquency at both times
• There was a positive correlation between psychoticism and delinquency at both times
• Extraversion only correlated with delinquency at time 2 and was a weaker correlation
• Psychoticism was the best predictor of delinquency but was still unreliable

Question 10

What were the conclusions?

Answer 10

• Psychoticism is associated with self reported delinquency
• Other psychological factors (peer pressure, personality, and upbringing) had a larger effect on delinquent behaviour than psychoticism

Question 11

What were the criticisms?

Answer 11

• Culturally biased sample as there were only children from Roman Catholic schools, ignoring other religions or atheists.
• From private schools, meaning the children were from richer families
• Only from Australia
• Results may have been affected by age bias as the behaviours that lead to delinquency develop earlier than 14-16 yrs.
• 20% of the participants dropped out, which could’ve been people who committed crimes and didn’t want to report them.
• Self report surveys are invalid as some participants may not have been honest due to social desirability bias.
• They used closed questions, meaning the data wasn’t qualitative.