Specific theories of crime? A longitudinal assessment of the competing effects of psychopathy and self-control

ABSTRACT

The association between psychopathic personality traits (PPTs) and offending behavior has been studied extensively. Self-control also enjoys strong empirical support in its association with antisocial behavior. Further, research has shown that those with higher PPTs and those with lower self-control are more likely to be antisocial and are more likely to have protracted criminal careers. The current study used latent class growth analysis to compare how PPTs and self-control predict membership in longitudinal offending trajectories among an all-male sample of adjudicated delinquents (n = 726) from the Pathways to Desistance data. The results indicated that PPTs predicted membership across the persistent offending and desisting groups more often than self-control. Self-control, however, more often predicted membership within the persistent offending groups. Although both factors were among the most salient predictors of group membership, the results illustrated specific differences in how each factor can influence longitudinal patterns of offending.

KEYWORDS:

• Longitudinal
• psychopathy
• self-control

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Research on offending patterns often excludes females due to low prevalence rates (Mulvey et al. 2010; Piquero et al. 2013) and potential for substantially different offending trajectories from males (Moffitt et al. 2002; Moretti, Odgers, and Jackson 2004; Tibbetts and Piquero 1999). Additionally, the prevalence of PPTs among females is lower than males (Sevecke, Lehmkuhl, and Krischer 2009), reducing some of the benefits of using an all-male sample.

2. A series of t-tests indicated no significant differences among key independent variables between those excluded and those retained with the exception of PCL (M = 15.69 to 16.93, SD = 7.73, t = 1.96, d = 0.16), and wave 8 crime variety count variable (M = 1.00 to 1.34, SD = 1.96, t = 1.97, d = 0.17). Race was also found to be different across the analytic and excluded sample: proportion of White (22% to 15%), proportion of black (39% to 48%), and Hispanics and others (40% to 37%) (χ² = 13.76, p < .05, ϕ = .11).Although these differences were significant, they were minor to moderate in magnitude.

3. Cronbach’s alpha was not listed on the Pathways website (https://www.pathwaysstudy.pitt.edu/).

4. We merge the Hispanic and Other groups due to the low prevalence of the Other category (4%). We use the new group as the reference group for our analysis.

5. We follow Gann, Sullivan, and Ilchi (2015) in using random starting values (n = 500) to avoid local maxima.

6. In addition to the main models, sensitivity analyses, excluding the time-varying covariates, are displayed in A1 and A2 in the appendix. Results revealed that there were few differences (discrepancies in significance are emboldened) between the analytic sample (n = 726) and the larger sample used in the sensitivity analyses (n = 1,093).

7. We use Bushway et al.’s (2001) definition of desistance: a reduction in offending rate from a nonzero level stabilizing at a rate empirically indistinguishable from zero.

8. Although these trajectories were classified as persisters, as they persisted in offending into emerging adulthood, the follow-up period was not sufficiently long to confirm persistence over the life course.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was provided by the University of Cincinnati School of Criminal Justice Summer Research Grant and the CECH Graduate Student and Faculty Mentoring Grant. Data for the study were retrieved from the Pathways to Desistance study held in the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data at Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. The original investigators were sponsored by Arizona Governor’s Justice Commission (JBISA012244400), John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (2001- J05-011944, 2002-J04-13032, 2003-J04-14560, 2004-J04-15849, 2005-J04-17071, 2006-J04-18272), Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (043357), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01 DA 019697 05), National Institute of Justice (1999-IJ-CX-0053, 2008-IJ-CX-0023), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2000-MU-MU-0007, 2005-JK-FX-K001, 2007-MU-FX-0002), William Penn Foundation, and William T. Grant Foundation (99-2009-099).

Notes on contributors

Sultan Altikriti

Sultan Altikriti is a doctoral candidate at the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. His research interests include developmental and life-course criminology, biosocial criminology, and deterrability.

Kalliopi Theocharidou

Kalliopi Theocharidou, MSc, is a doctoral candidate in the School or Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Cognition in Amsterdam University College, and her Master’s in Criminal Justice degree in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests include biosocial and life-course criminology.

Christopher J. Sullivan

Christopher J. Sullivan, PhD, is Professor and Graduate Program Director in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. His main interests include juvenile justice and developmental, life-course criminology. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and invited book chapters and is the author of the 2019 book, Taking Juvenile Justice Seriously: Developmental Insights and System Challenges (Temple University Press). Dr. Sullivan is currently Co-Editor of the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency.