Personality traits, criminal sentiments, moral disengagement and deviant behavior in young adults
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Date
2023
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Publisher
UMT Lahore
Abstract
Deviant behavior has increasingly become a prevalent issue in past years among young
adults. The current study was designed to examine and explore the relationship between
personality traits, criminal sentiments, moral disengagement, and deviant behavior in
young adults. The sample consisted of 242 young adults. The sample age range was 18
35 years. Data was collected from different areas of Lahore. Questionnaire on the Big
Five Inventory (Rammstedt & John, 2005), Criminal Sentiments Scale (Andrews &
Wormith, 1984), Moral Disengagement Scales (Bandura, 2002), and Deviant Behavior
Scale (Mushtaq & Kauser, 2012) were used. Descriptive and inferential analysis along
with psychometric properties, correlation, regression, mediation, moderation, t-test, and
ANOVA were used for analysis. Findings of the study indicated there was a significant
relationship in personality traits, criminal sentiments, moral disengagement, and deviant
behavior. Extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, tolerance for law violation,
displacement of responsibility, and dehumanization were the best predictors of deviant
behavior in young adults. Furthermore, group differences were also indicated significant
gender, education based differences. Moreover, the results further revealed that criminal
sentiment was a significant moderator between personality traits and deviant behavior. In
addition to that results also shown that moral disengagement was a significant mediator
between personality traits and deviant behavior and showed partial mediation while the
openness personality trait showed full mediation. Addressing these factors that contribute
to deviant behavior will be helpful for the development of effective intervention
programs.