Thomas Nilsson, Örjan Falk, Eva Billstedt, Nóra Kerekes, Henrik Anckarsäter, Märta Wallinius, Björn Hofvander
Abstract
Antisocial personality and psychopathic traits have constantly been found to accompany criminal and aggressive behaviors, but little attention has been given to aspects of character maturity and its relation to such behaviors. The present study investigated (1) whether level of character maturity (low, medium, and high) is associated with amount of aggressive antisocial behaviors (AABs) and psychopathic traits in young men imprisoned for violent criminality, and (2) whether such an association is independent of coexisting attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Swedish males (N = 270, aged 18-25) sentenced to prison for violent and/or sexual criminality in the western region of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service underwent a thorough clinical examination during their incarceration. Data on character maturity, as measured by the character dimensions Self-Directedness and Cooperativeness of the Temperament and Character Inventory, were available for n = 148 subjects and were used to divide these offenders into three groups with low, medium, and high character maturity. These groups were then compared for variables reflecting criminal history, a DSM-IV diagnosis of ADHD, conduct disorder (CD) and substance use disorders (SUD), aggressive behaviors, and psychopathic traits.
Character maturity was consistently associated with less AABs and psychopathic personality traits; the group with the highest character maturity showed: (i) a later age at onset of criminality, (ii) a smaller number of prior violent criminal acts, (iii) lower prevalence of ADHD, CD, and SUD, (iv) less self-rated and expert-rated aggressive behaviors, and (v) less psychopathic traits. The association between character maturity and aggressive behaviors/psychopathic personality traits remained even when ADHD was controlled for. The only exception was sexual criminality, where the group with the highest character maturity contained the largest amount of sexual offenders.
Higher character maturity appeared to be a protective factor among young male violent offenders, associated with less AABs, suggesting that character maturity is a promising target for treatment interventions for this group of individuals.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 June 2017.
All research outputs
#8,683,181
of 26,367,306 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Psychiatry
#4,197
of 13,087 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#108,409
of 291,116 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Psychiatry
#18
of 39 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 26,367,306 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 66th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 13,087 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.6. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 291,116 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 61% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 39 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 51% of its contemporaries.
