Neglectful Parenting and Personality Traits as Predictors of Malevolent Creativity among Ghanaian Tertiary Education Students

Abstract

Creative potentials are diverse in humans and can be manifested when influenced by other unobservable and observable factors. In light of this, we examined the predictive roles of neglectful parenting and personality traits on malevolent creativity. The cross-sectional design was used to survey 623 participants. Data for the study were collected with adapted neglectful parenting, personality traits, and malevolent creativity scales. The data were analysed inferentially with CB-SEM. The study revealed positive predictions of physical and emotional neglect on hurting people, lying, and playing tricks as aspects of malevolent creativity. Furthermore, conscientious personality trait predicted higher on hurting people, lying, and playing tricks as aspects of malevolent creativity. We concluded that neglectful parenting and improper parenting can bring about unacceptable behaviours among people as many of the victims might become a social canker. Therefore, families and significant others in communities should be taken through strategies in preventing irregular parenting and moderated personality dispositions before they develop into unacceptable behaviours that might ruin the gains of society.