Personality Traits as Predictors of Malevolent Creative Ideation in Offenders

Malevolent creativity, which can be defined as creativity that is deliberately planned to damage others, is a concept that explains how the capacity to generate novel and effective outcomes (creativity) may, on occasion, be misapplied. The present study used 130 male inmates of the Oradea Maximum Security Penitentiary in Romania to explore the ability of a set of personality variables (the dark triad, self-efficacy, and self-esteem) to predict malevolent creative ideation. The findings indicate that Machiavellianism and self-efficacy were significant predictors of malevolent creative ideation in the form of lying, while only Machiavellianism was a significant predictor of malevolent creative ideation in the form of hurting people. In addition, the present study found significant differences among subgroups in the sample, with more experienced offenders showing higher levels of malevolent creative ideation.