Heaven (1996): a study into delinquency, extraversion, psychoticism and self-esteem

Hypothesis:

• The researcher predicted that measures of psychoticism, extraversion and self-esteem would be significant predictors for self-reported delinquency.

Design:

• Previous research was cross-sectional so Heaven wanted to carry out longitudinal research to see if psychoticism, extraversion and self-esteem at the start of the study (time 1) were significant predictors of self-reported delinquency two years later (time 2).

Sample:

• 282 adolescents (146 female, 136 male) aged 13-15 years from two Catholic independent schools in Australia.

Materials:

At time 1 and time 2, students were given:

1. A set of questions taken from Eysenck’s questionnaire to measure psychoticism and extraversion

2. A 10-item questionnaire to measure self-esteem

3. A questionnaire for…