Basic Personality and Actual Criminal Convictions

Crime is an issue with severe consequences for individuals, economies, and society at large. Developing effective crime prevention strategies requires a clear understanding of who is likely to engage in crime and why. A promising approach in this regard likely is integrating established criminological theories with established models of basic personality structure. Correspondingly, the present investigation derives hypotheses from three criminological theories—self-control theory/general theory of crime, situational action theory, and general strain theory—on the relation between the HEXACO personality dimensions and crime. The preregistered hypotheses were tested by linking HEXACO data of a Danish adult personality panel (N = 12,496) to official records on all criminal convictions of the participants registered within the past 41 years. Results revealed negative associations of honesty–humility, emotionality, agreeableness versus anger, and conscientiousness with crime (0.71 ≤ odds ratios ≤ 0.88). Except for agreeableness, effects were robust to controlling for relevant background variables (e.g., sex, age, education, income). The relation of the HEXACO dimensions varied only slightly across different types of offenses (e.g., interpersonal crimes, property crimes). In sum, this investigation provides a robust theoretical and empirical basis for how personality relates to crime.