Food-related quality of life is impaired in inflammatory bowel disease and associated with reduced intake of key nutrients

Kevin Whelan

doi:10.1093/ajcn/nqaa395

Beyond Legal Deterrence: A Replication and Extension Study on Psychopathy, Self-Control, and Crime-Specific Willingness to Offend

2025-11-01

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AI

V

Valentina Macías-Vasileff *

S

Stefan Bogaerts

E

Elien De Caluwé

Y

Yasemin Erbaş

C

Carlo Garofalo

DOI：10.1177/00224278251394278

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Objectives This study explored the extent to which law-abiding behavior depends on legal punishment by replicating and extending Meldrum et al. who found that 18% of participants were willing to offend if all crimes were legal during a hypothetical day (i.e., purging) and that these individuals exhibited higher psychopathic traits and lower self-control. We sought to replicate their findings and extend them through methodological refinements.Methods A community convenience sample of 865 predominantly European participants completed an online survey. Participants responded to a single item asking whether they would offend in the absence of legal controls, followed by a 33-item questionnaire assessing willingness of committing specific crimes under the same conditions, and self-report measures of psychopathy and self-control.Results Thirty percent of participants reported willingness to offend on the single-item measure, and 76.7% endorsed at least one specific crime. Minor offenses (e.g., theft; similar to 50%) were more frequently endorsed than severe ones (e.g., violent- or sex-crimes; 0.3%-4.3%). An exploratory factor analysis of the purge questionnaire identified seven crime categories with distinct endorsement levels. Regression analyses indicated that psychopathic traits and low self-control were positively related to purging, with psychopathy emerging as the stronger predictor of purging and most crime categories.Conclusions Legal punishment alone does not explain law-abiding behavior; individuals appear to refrain from severe crimes for extralegal reasons, whereas minor crimes may require legal deterrence. Psychopathic traits and low self-control represent robust psychological risk factors, underscoring the need for prevention strategies that target these predispositions alongside traditional legal deterrence.

Keywords:

classical deterrence theory

low self-control

psychopathic traits

crime-specific offending

The Purge.

Beyond Legal Deterrence: A Replication and Extension Study on Psychopathy, Self-Control, and Crime-Specific Willingness to Offend

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