BIO

I am currently a second year student and I am originally from Charleston, South Carolina. I am double majoring in music (oboe) and cyber criminology. I was interested in this project because it bridges my interests in Criminology, Psychology, and Data Science into one study. I hope to pursue a career in Cyber Security, while continuing my passion for research. Here at Florida State I am currently in the Wind Orchestra and in my free time I enjoy reading and drinking coffee!

Trauma and Aggressive Fantasies as Predictors of Criminal Involvement in an Internet Sample

Abstract

Past studies indicate, if a subject has a higher level of childhood trauma their likelihood for criminal involvement increases. However, there is a discrepancy when comparing aggressive fantasies and their relationship to criminal involvement. Some argue that aggressive fantasies are an indicator of future criminal involvement, while others believe them to be a coping mechanism which reduces criminal involvement. Our research aims to identify if aggressive fantasies will still reduce criminal involvement when trauma is used as a mediating factor. To explore this trend we used an internet population selected from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk of 357 participants which was composed of 145 male and 211 female subjects from different racial backgrounds with a mean age of 33.92 years. Three scales were used in this study to measure trauma, aggressive fantasies and criminal involvement: (1) the Adverse Childhood Trauma Scale measures the total adverse experiences in a participant's childhood, (2) the Criminal Involvement Scale measures the criminal involvement of the participant, and (3) the Aggressive Fantasies Scale measures how often a participant thinks, daydreams, or imagines harming others. Our results showed that 68.1% of the variance between aggressive fantasies and criminal acts was accounted for by ACES indirectly in comparison to only 31.9% that was accounted for by aggressive fantasies. From a criminologists standpoint, it is important to understand the impacts of trauma and aggressive fantasies in order to prevent criminal involvement and also to predict recidivism of offenders.

Keywords: Criminology, Aggressive Fantasies, Childhood Trauma, Developmental Psychology