Moral reasoning, executive function, and personality in violent and nonviolent adult offenders

To evaluate moral reasoning and personality, inmates from a maximum security jail were administered the Porteus Maze, the Defining Issues Test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-168, and the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence. Scores of 20 violent and 19 nonviolent offenders were compared. The control group consisted of 20 university students who indicated they did not have criminal records. All were over the age of 18. Analysis showed the violent offenders had mature moral reasoning and were more elevated on the Antiestablishment scale of the Defining Issues Test. Furthermore, inmates displayed significantly elevated scores on depression, Psychopathic Deviance, and Social Introversion relative to the control group.