The roles of gender and personality factors in vandalism and scrawl graffiti among Swedish adolescents.
A total of 360 upper secondary school students in Sweden were divided into three grouping variables: gender (male, female) vandalism (involved, not involved) and scrawl graffiti (involved, not involved) Relevant to the discussion of whether or not scrawl graffiti may be construed as vandalism or art, the aim of the study was to explore whether or not personality factors known to be linked to vandalism in general (such as impulsivity, affectivity, emotional disability, and optimism) are related also to involvement in scrawl graffiti, and, furthermore, how the gender factor relates to vandalism and scrawl graffiti, respectively. The analysis showed that impulsiveness was a significant variable related to vandalism as well as to scrawl graffiti. Further analysis indicated that vandalism was predicted by non planning impulsiveness whereas scrawl graffiti was predicted by motor impulsiveness. Analyses showed also that there were significant gender differences related to both vandalism and scrawl graffiti, whereby male participants were significantly more involved in vandalism than female participants, while the latter were significantly more involved in scrawl graffiti than the former.
PsyCh journal