Political ideology predicts involvement in crime

Citation

Wright, John Paul; Beaver, Kevin M.; Morgan, Mark Alden; & Connolly, Eric J. (2017). Political ideology predicts involvement in crime. Personality and Individual Differences. vol. 106 pp. 236-241

Abstract

Political ideology represents an imperfect yet important indicator of a host of personality traits and cognitive preferences. These preferences, in turn, seemingly propel liberals and conservatives towards divergent life-course experiences. Criminal behavior represents one particular domain of conduct where differences rooted in political ideology may exist. Using a national dataset, we test whether and to what extent political ideology is predictive of self-reported criminal behavior. Our results show that self-identified political ideology is monotonically related to criminal conduct cross-sectionally and prospectively and that liberals self-report more criminal conduct than do conservatives. We discuss potential causal mechanisms relating political ideology to individual conduct.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.062

Keyword(s)

Political ideology

Reference Type

Journal Article

Journal Title

Personality and Individual Differences

Author(s)

Wright, John Paul
Beaver, Kevin M.
Morgan, Mark Alden
Connolly, Eric J.

Year Published

2017

Volume Number

106

Pages

236-241

Edition

November 9, 2016

DOI

10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.062

Reference ID

6727