An Attempt to Identify the Personality Dimensions of the Violent Offender

Thirty violent and thirty nonviolent youthful offenders were administered the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory, the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. A factor analysis of this battery produced two orthogonal factors accounting for three-quarters of the total variance. Factor I was a unipolar Hostility/Neuroticism factor and Factor II was a bipolar Psychoticism vs Extraversion factor. The two groups did not differ significantly from each other on either factor or on an optimal combination of both. Implications for future research are drawn.