SHAFQAT ALI2025-11-252025-11-252023https://escholar.umt.edu.pk/handle/123456789/12761Deviant 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.en-USThesis