© Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2010, 6(1) PERSONALITY, GENDER, AND SELF-CONTROL THEORY REVISITED: RESULTS FROM A SAMPLE OF INSTITUTIONALIZED JUVENILE DELINQUENTS

Two empirically unresolved areas of study of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) self-control theory are personality and gender. The theory states that personality is unrelated to self-con-trol and crime, and prior studies have found that self-control operates differently for males and females. Using data from confi ned delinquents in the California Youth Authority (n = 791) and measures derived from the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory which is a superordi-nate measure of personality, the current study explored the linkages between self-control and institutional misconduct. MANOVA and negative binomial regression models showed that wards with lower self-control/self-restraint had greater levels of diverse institutional miscon-duct. However, self-control was predictive of misconduct in only three of ten multivariate models and only among males. Self-control was unrelated to institutional misconduct among females. Implications for theory and research on the general theory are provided. Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi’s self-control approach in A General Theory of Crime (1990) has emerged as an infl uential theoretical perspective in crimi-nology evidenced by more than 2,000 citations and many empirical tests. According to Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), an individual’s level of self-control is the outcome o