Browsing by Author "Hyysalo, Noora"

The aim of this study was to examine the association of personality with juvenile violence and substance use, and the gender differences in that association. Furthermore, the association of personality with violence explained by substance use, was examined. Criminological theories – the general theory of crime and the general strain theory – state that the tendency towards delinquency can be explained by individual differences defined by personality. Previous studies have widely examined associations of personality and gender with violence and substance use, but the research is insufficient of the gender differences in the previous association as well as of the association of personality with violence explained by substance use. Studying these questions enables identifying the youth who might have an elevated tendency to violence and substance use along with personality. The data included the respondents of the Finnish self-report delinquency study conducted by the National Research Institute of Legal Policy in 2012. There were 8914 6th and 9th graders around Finland who responded to the survey, but the final sample was limited to the 9th graders aged between 15 to 16 years. The final sample comprised 4797 subjects. In this study, the association of personality with violence and substance (alcohol and drug) use was examined with multinomial logistic regression analysis. In addition, the association of personality with violence mediated by substance use was examined with mediation analysis. This study found that higher extraversion and lower conscientiousness and lower agreeableness were associated with greater violence and substance use. Boys were more violent and used more drugs than girls. Surprisingly, girls' occasional alcohol use was greater than boys'. Compared to earlier studies, this study found as entirely new results that lower conscientiousness increased the likelihood of girls' repeated violence and the likelihood of boys' repeated alcohol use. Moreover, higher neuroticism increased the likelihood of boys' occasional substance use, as for girls, the same effect was found with lower neuroticism. Finally, substance use strongly mediated the association of extraversion with violence. Based on these study results, extraverted youth, in particular, have an elevated risk of being exposed to violence through substance use, and therefore fall into a disadvantageous developmental path. The results also indicate that notably the associations of conscientiousness and neuroticism with juvenile violence and substance use differ according to gender. Thus, gender should be taken into account when developing interventions directed to reduce juvenile violence and substance use.