Impulsiveness and Venturesomeness in a Detention Center Population

Abstract

A group of 641 delinquent subjects at a detention centre were given a 63-item questionnaire purporting to measure Impulsiveness, Venturesomeness and Empathy. Of these, 614 subjects also completed a Personality Questionnaire measuring Psychoticism, Extraversion, Neuroticism and Social Desirability. Factor analysis of the 63-item questionnaire confirmed that the three factor structure obtained for normal subjects also held for an offender group. Furthermore, the relations between Impulsivity and the other variables obtained in a previous study on normal subjects were confirmed in this prison population. The identification of Impulsiveness with Psychoticism and Venturesomeness with Extraversion was found somewhat more clearly in the offender group. Though confirming the positive relationship of Empathy with Neuroticism, a significant negative correlation was obtained for Empathy with Psychoticism in the offender group only. (This latter finding seems in accord with results in a study of Impulsiveness in children.) Finally, of the seven variables measured offenders differed from normals significantly on means for all but Venturesomeness. They were higher on Psychoticism, Extraversion, Neuroticism, Social Desirability and Impulsiveness but lower on Empathy.