Psychology & Personality of Criminals

What are the psychological motivations and common big five personality traits of criminals and fraudsters?

Psychological Motivations

Socrates believed that most evil or criminal acts were committed out of ignorance. This is because most of these people believe that money and social-status will make them happy. This belief is the ignorance he was talking about. If someone commits a crime or evil act in order to improve their happiness, it actually has the opposite effect. This is because most people have a conscience, and committing a bad or evil act against someone hurts that conscience.

This potentially results in a negative spiral of decline. The worse someone’s conscience gets, the more they have to do to distract themselves from it. This can range from more criminal or evil acts, to simple pleasure seeking to distract themselves from their conscience. They not only harm others, but they also harm themselves out of ignorance.

Big Five Personality Traits

Openness

Criminals could easily be high or low in trait openness. High openness criminals would likely be more creative.

Conscientiousness

Most criminals will be low on conscientiousness, especially the industrious aspect. This means they won’t be hard workers. Instead of working for something, they are more likely to try and steal something.  

Extroversion

Those high in extroversion are more likely to engage in thrill-seeking activities. Extroverts are more motivated by what is known as reward sensitivity and high social-status seeking. I would predict there were more extroverted criminals than introverted ones due to differing motivations. However, this is one of the weaker correlations.

Agreeableness

A much stronger correlation between personality and criminality is being low in agreeableness, also known as being disagreeable. Disagreeable people are not motivated by compassion, but rather competitiveness. This also connects to social-status seeking and self-interest.

Neuroticism

Most criminals will be on the low end of most aspects of the neuroticism scale. If they are really low in this trait, they will be low on anxiety and fear. This seems very much connected to a psychopathic personality.

The Dark Triad/Tetrad

Not surprisingly, many of the dark triad/tetrad traits will apply to the criminal types. Many will embody traits such as lacking a moral conscience, low fear and anxiety associated with psychopathy. Social-status seeking, which is common with narcissists. Machiavellianism traits, which is basically engaging in deception and manipulation. Some may also be sadistic, gaining pleasure from harming others.     

Summary

Beliefs, as Socrates suggested, combined with personality traits. So, they believe money and shallow pursuits will bring them happiness. Low conscientiousness, and agreeableness on the big five. Plus, likely high in certain aspects of the dark tetrad traits.