Hopelessness,Loneliness,Self-Esteem,and Personality in Russian Male Delinquent Adolescents versus Controls

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to test for possible interrelations between hopelessness, loneliness, self-esteem, and personality in samples of delinquent adolescents (n = 187) and controls (n = 103) from the Arkhangelsk region in Russia. The subjects were assessed by means of the UCLA Loneliness Scale, Beck’s Hopelessness Scale, Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, and Cloninger’s Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). The delinquents differed from the controls in most of the variables under investigation. The loneliness and hopelessness scales were highly interrelated. Furthermore, they correlated with the temperament dimension of harm avoidance and inversely correlated with the character dimension of self-directedness. Self-esteem appeared to be exclusively related with self-directedness. Our results reflect relationships between certain personality traits and psychological symptoms and indicate the potential of the TCI as a clinical assessment tool.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bayon, C. , Hill, K. , Svrakic, D. M. , Przybeck, T. R. , & Cloninger, C. R. (1996). Dimensional assessment of personality in an outpatient sample: Relations of the systems of Millon and Cloninger. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 30, 341-352.

Beck, A. T. (1963). Thinking and depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 9, 324-333.

Beck, A. T. , Weissman, A. , Lester, D. , & Trexler, L. (1974). The measurement of pessimism: The Hopelessness Scale. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42(6), 861-865.

Breier-Williford, S. , & Bramlett, R. K. (1995). Time perspective of substance abuse patients: Comparison of the scales in Stanford Time Perspective Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and Beck Hopelessness Scale. Psychological Reports, 77, 899-905.

Brown, S. L. , Svrakic, D. M. , Przybeck, T. R. , & Cloninger, C. R. (1992). The relationship of personality to mood and anxiety states: A dimensional approach. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 26, 197-211.

Caspi, A. , Henry, B. , McGee, R. O. , Moffitt, T. E. , & Silva, P. A. (1995). Temperament origins of child and adolescent behavior problems: From age three to age fifteen. Child Development, 66(1), 55-68.

Cloninger, C. R. (1987). A systematic method for clinical description and classification of personality variants. Archives of General Psychiatry, 44, 573-588.

Cloninger, C. R. , Bayon, C. , & Svrakic, D. M. (in press). Measurement of fundamental states of mood disorder as personality variants. Journal of Affective Disorders.

Cloninger, C. R. , Przybeck, T. R. , Svrakic, D. M. , & Wetzel, R. D. (1994). The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI): A guide to its development and use. St. Louis, MO: Washington University, Center for Psychobiology of Personality.

10.

Crowne, D. P. , & Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 24(4), 349-354.

11.

DeBerard, M. S. , & Kleinknecht, R. A. (1995). Loneliness, duration of loneliness, and reported stress symptomatology. Psychological Reports, 76, 1363-1369.

12.

Heaven, P. C. (1996). Personality and self-reported delinquency: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 37(6), 747-751.

13.

Howard, J. (1981). The expression and possible origins of depression in male delinquent adolescents. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 15(4), 311-318.

14.

Kalliopuska, M. , & Laitinen, M. (1991). Loneliness related to self-concept. Psychological Reports, 69(1), 27-34.

15.

Kashani, J. H. , Nair, S. S. , Rao, V. G. , Nair, J. , & Reid, J. C. (1996). Relationship of personality, environment and DICA variables to adolescent hopelessness: A neural network sensitivity approach. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 35(5), 640-645.

16.

Kerr, M. , Tremblay, R. E. , Pagani, L. , & Vitaro, F. (1997). Boys’ behavioral inhibition and the risk of later delinquency. Archives of General Psychiatry, 54(9), 809-816.

17.

Krueger, R. F. , Schmutte, P. S. , Caspi, A. , Moffitt, T. E. , Campbell, K. , & Silva, P. A. (1994). Personality traits are linked to crime among men and women: Evidence from a birth cohort. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103(2), 328-338.

18.

MacLeod, A. K. , & Byrne, A. (1996). Anxiety, depression and anticipation of future positive and negative experiences. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105(2), 286-289.

19.

Mehrabian, A. , & Stefl, C. A. (1995). Basic temperament components of loneliness, shyness and conformity. Social Behavior & Personality, 23(3), 253-263.

20.

Melges, F. , & Bowlby, J. (1969). Types of hopelessness in psychopathological process. Archives of General Psychiatry, 20, 690-699.

21.

Moffitt, T. E. (1993). Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100(4), 674-701.

22.

Nagoshi, C. T. , Walter, D. , Muntaner, C. , & Haertzen, C. A. (1992). Validation of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire in a sample of male drug users. Personality and Individual Differences, 13(4), 401-409.

23.

Nie, N. H. , Hadlai, H. C. , Jenkins, J. G. , Steinbrenner, K. , & Bent, D. H. (1970). Statistical package for the social sciences. New York: McGraw-Hill.

24.

Pfefferbaum, B. , & Wood, P. B. (1994). Self-report study of impulsive and delinquent behavior in college students. Journal of Adolescent Health, 15(4), 295-302.

25.

Pfohl, B. , Black, D. W. , Noyes, R. , Kelley, M. , & Blum, N. (1990). A test of the tridimensional personality theory: Association with diagnosis and platelet imipramine binding in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Biological Psychiatry, 28, 41-46.

26.

Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

27.

Rosenberg, M. , Schooler, C. , & Schoenbach, C. (1989). Self-esteem and adolescent problems: Modelling reciprocal effect. American Sociological Review, 6, 1004-1018.

28.

Russell, D. , Peplau, L. A. ,& Cutrona, C. E. (1980). The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: Concurrent and discriminant validity evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 472-480.

29.

Sartorius, N. , & Kuyken, W. (1994). Translation of health status instruments. In J. Orley & W. Kuyken (Eds.), Quality of life assessment: International perspectives (pp. 3-18). Berlin-Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag.

30.

Saviotti, F. M. , Grandi, S. , Savron, G. , Ermentini, R. , Bartolucci, G. , Conti, S. , & Fava, G. A. (1991). Characterological traits of recovered patients with panic disorder and agoraphobia. Journal of Affective Disorders, 23(3), 113-117.

31.

Strakowski, S. M. , Faedda, G. L. , Tohen, M. , Goodwin, D. C. , & Stoll, A. L. (1992). Possible affective-state dependence of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire in first-episode psychosis. Psychiatric Research, 41(3), 215-226.

32.

Svrakic, D. M. , Whitehead, C. , Przybeck, T. R. , & Cloninger, C. R. (1993). Differential diagnosis of personality disorders by the Seven Factor Model of Temperament and Character. Archives of General Psychiatry, 50, 991-999.

33.

Svrakic, N. M. , Svrakic, D. M. , & Cloninger, C. R. (1996). A general quantitative theory of personality development: Fundamentals of a self-organizing psychobiological complex. Development & Psychopathology, 8, 247-272.