Weapons carrying in British teenagers: The role of personality, delinquency, sensational interests, and mating effort

Malevolent Creativity: Does Personality Influence Malicious Divergent Thinking?

“…Specifically, individuals, low in conscientiousness, tend to engage in more unorthodox and unconventional activities than their conscientious counterparts. For instance, low conscientiousness is associated with weapon carrying (Barlas & Egan, 2006), risky driving behaviors (Schwebel, Severson, Ball, & Rizzo, 2006), and workplace sabotage (Bolton, Becker, & Barber, 2010). In academic contexts, low conscientiousness is related to greater levels of productivity when projects are not constrained by typical rules (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2006;George & Zhou, 2001).…”

Testing Three Explanations of the Emergence of Weapon Carrying in Peer Context: The Roles of Aggression, Victimization, and the Social Network

“…Alternatively, weapon carrying may emerge as part of a larger category of problem behaviors [3,[15][16][17][18][19][20], particularly involvement in aggressive behaviors [16,19]. However, it has also been suggested that it is not so much being the initiator of aggression, rather it is being the target of aggression, that triggers weapon carrying as a defensive response [7,21].…”

“…The question is, why do adolescents carry weapons? Multiple motivations may be involved [3], yet three explanations dominate research on weapon carrying. Weapon carrying among adolescents has been explained as a consequence of peer influence [4], as a component of a delinquent lifestyle, and as a protective response to threats in the environment [5].…”

Possession of a knife and private defence: Dilemmas in the pursuit of personal security in England and Wales

“…Most studies investigating correlates of weapon carrying have used US samples and have also used multivariate regression methodologies; such studies tend to indicate that weapon carrying for 'protection' is only one factor e with other socio-psychological factors identified such as family dynamics, substance abuse, childhood maltreatment and so on (Vaughn et al, 1996;Bailey et al, 1997;Pickett et al, 2005;Eaton et al, 2006;Wright and Fitzpatrick 2006;Lewis et al, 2007;Thurnherr et al, 2009 (Switzerland); but see Barlas and Egan, 2006 for a British based study).-But it seems plausible that those variables only identify subgroups where there is likely to be particular need for self-protection, and thus do not disturb the centrality of self-protection. One prospective US study has shown that self-reported fears preceded the onset of weapon carrying reported at a 12-month follow-up, suggesting a link between perceived vulnerabilities and subsequent weapon carrying (Arria et al, 1997).…”