Honesty-humility and criminal behavior among imprisoned criminal offenders

Does the basic prosocial trait of Honesty-Humility predict crime? We test whether Honesty-Humility (1) dif-ferentiates between imprisoned criminal offenders and the national population, (2) predicts the frequency of criminal behavior (the number of reported crimes), and (3) predicts the type of crime leading to imprisonment (violent, non-violent, and sexual). We found that imprisoned criminal offenders had lower levels of Honesty -Humility than the national population, but Honesty-Humility did not predict the number of reported crimes and the type of crime leading to imprisonment in this group. Additionally, we examined if Honesty-Humility predicts violent (defensive and sadistic aggression) and non-violent (cheating) lab antisocial behavior among imprisoned criminal offenders. We found that Honesty-Humility negatively predicted violent, but it did not significantly relate to non-violent antisocial behavior in this group.

Automated summary

The study found that the basic prosocial trait of Honesty-Humility can differentiate between criminal offenders and the general population, but it does not predict the frequency and type of crimes leading to imprisonment. Among criminal offenders, Honesty-Humility negatively predicts violent behavior, but does not significantly relate to non-violent antisocial behavior.