Personality, social skills, anomie and delinquency: a self-report study of a group of normal non-delinquent adolescents.

A group of over 200 'normal' adolescents were administered self-report measures of personality (extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism), social skills, anomie and delinquency in order to establish which of three theories best predicted delinquency. Eysenck's personality factors, particularly psychoticism, correlated most highly with delinquency, while there was no correlation at all between self-reported social skills and delinquency. Overall the males tended to have lower neuroticism but higher psychoticism and anomie scores. The results are discussed in terms of the various psychological theories of delinquency, and the implications of these results for treatment are noted. It was pointed out that because this study was restricted to well-educated, middle class, above-average sixth-form college students the findings may not generalize to a group of convicted or institutionalized offenders. The limitations inherent in self-report measures and in studies of this sort are also considered.