RESEARCH PAPER
Gender-based personality traits
in physically aggressive and non-aggressive
antisocial behaviours
1
Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Pakistan
2
Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, United Kingdom
3
University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
4
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India
Submission date: 2021-08-03
Final revision date: 2021-09-04
Acceptance date: 2021-09-19
Online publication date: 2022-03-06
Publication date: 2022-09-30
Current Issues in Personality Psychology 2022;10(3):205–215
KEYWORDS
sensation seekingdisinhibitionthrill and adventure seekingcallousnessaffective dissonanceantisocial behaviours
TOPICS
the role of personality in interpersonal relations and social behaviorspersonality and behavior dynamics
ABSTRACT
Background:
The current study aimed to understand the role of callousness, affective dissonance, and two subtypes of sensation seeking personality traits – 1) disinhibition and 2) thrill and adventure seeking – in physically aggressive and non-aggressive antisocial behaviours (ASB) among educated youth and to explore the gender differences in them.
Participants and procedure:
An online survey was sent to a large sample of students at a UK university. Initially, a sample of N = 539 participants was collected but after screening out the data, N = 429 participants were included for analyses based on the sam-pling criteria.
Results:
Callousness, disinhibition, and affective dissonance significantly predicted both antisocial behaviour subtypes. We found multidimensional nature of callousness in predicting antisocial behaviours, and an intriguing relationship be-tween thrill and adventure seeking and affective dissonance. Interesting gender differences emerged.
Conclusions:
This study has implications for the understanding of the competitive roles of gender-based psychopathological per-sonality traits in terms of callousness and affective dissonance and sensation seeking tendencies in physically ag-gressive and non-aggressive antisocial behaviours.
The current study aimed to understand the role of callousness, affective dissonance, and two subtypes of sensation seeking personality traits – 1) disinhibition and 2) thrill and adventure seeking – in physically aggressive and non-aggressive antisocial behaviours (ASB) among educated youth and to explore the gender differences in them.
Participants and procedure:
An online survey was sent to a large sample of students at a UK university. Initially, a sample of N = 539 participants was collected but after screening out the data, N = 429 participants were included for analyses based on the sam-pling criteria.
Results:
Callousness, disinhibition, and affective dissonance significantly predicted both antisocial behaviour subtypes. We found multidimensional nature of callousness in predicting antisocial behaviours, and an intriguing relationship be-tween thrill and adventure seeking and affective dissonance. Interesting gender differences emerged.
Conclusions:
This study has implications for the understanding of the competitive roles of gender-based psychopathological per-sonality traits in terms of callousness and affective dissonance and sensation seeking tendencies in physically ag-gressive and non-aggressive antisocial behaviours.
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