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Psychological strength assessed in late adolescence and risk for criminal behavior: a Swedish prospective cohort and twin analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2015

K. S. Kendler ,
S. L. Lönn ,
P. Lichtenstein ,
J. Sundquist  and
K. Sundquist
K. S. Kendler*
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
S. L. Lönn
Affiliation:
Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden
P. Lichtenstein
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
J. Sundquist
Affiliation:
Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
K. Sundquist
Affiliation:
Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: K. S. Kendler, M.D., Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics of VCU, Box 980126, Richmond, VA 23298-0126, USA. (Email: [email protected])
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Abstract

Background.

Certain personality traits predispose to criminal behavior (CB). We further clarify this relationship in a Swedish national sample.

Method.

Psychological strength (PS) was assessed on a nine-point scale at personal interview in 1 653 721 Swedish men aged 18–20 years. We examined the association between PS and total, violent and recurrent CB over the lifetime (logistic regression), prospectively (Cox regression) and by bivariate Cholesky decomposition in 2507 monozygotic and 2244 dizygotic twin pairs (OpenMx).

Results.

Examining linear effects by logistic regression, PS was robustly associated with lifetime risk of total CB (per point, odds ratio = 0.74) and even more strongly associated with risk for violent (0.69) and recurrent CB (0.52). Prospective predictions of these three forms of CB by PS were similar, with hazard ratios of 0.80, 0.73 and 0.54, respectively. Twin modeling demonstrated that, for all three CB types, the association with PS arose almost entirely from familial effects. Common shared environment accounted for 72, 56 and 43% of the phenotypic correlation between PS and, respectively, total, violent and recurrent CB. Parallel figures for common genetic effects were for 24, 37 and 54%, respectively.

Conclusions.

PS is strongly related to risk for total CB, and even more strongly for violent and, especially, recurrent CB. This association is probably not causal but rather results from shared familial risk factors that make an impact both on PS and risk for CB. PS has a stronger overall correlation with more severe criminal outcomes and a higher proportion of that correlation results from common genetic factors.

Keywords

Crimepersonalitytwinsviolence
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 63 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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