Low Self-Control, the Adventurer Personality, and Victimization: A Tourism Evaluation

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is a dearth of research examining criminal victimization among tourists and travelers. Additionally, with the exception of the routine activities framework, none of the leading criminological perspectives have been applied to study tourism victimization. In this paper, we apply a dominant criminological perspective, self-control theory, and an emerging perspective on tourist personality inventory, the Jackson Tourist Personality Inventory, to examine risks of victimization among a sample of tourists. We also assess whether the adventurer tourist personality inventory influences risks of victimization beyond an individual’s self-control. Employing three categories of victimization – personal victimization, property victimization, and other victimization – we found low self-control predicted two types of victimization (property victimization and other victimization) while the adventurer tourist personality type was a significant predictor of one type of victimization (property victimization). We also uncovered that the characteristics of an adventurer tourist were not related to victimization risks after a tourist’s self-control has been taken into consideration. Finally, we found that under conditions of very low self-control, the adventurer tourist measure was related to property victimization. Theoretical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.