Sensational interests and general personality traits

Abstract

While an interest in guns, knives, true crime, the occult and Nazism is said to be common in sexually sadistic murderers, these topics are of interest to many rather less extreme individuals. A Sensational Interests Questionnaire (SIQ) was developed to measure violent and unusual interests in a sample of 301 individuals, over 100 of whom were mentally disordered offenders. The SIQ had high internal reliability and measured five dimensions: militarism; the violent-occult; intellectual interests; paranormal credulousness; and wholesome activities. Despite face-validity, some ostensibly sensational interests (for example, ‘serial killers’, ‘true crime’ and ‘Hitler and Fascism’) did not load significantly on the main factors of the SIQ. These items have high base-rates of interest in the general population, and thus lack discriminatory value. SIQ scores were correlated with the ‘Big Five’ personality traits (Openness; Conscientiousness; Extroversion; Agreeableness; and Neuroticism) as measured by the NEO-Five Factor Inventory, and an estimate of verbal IQ. Hyper-masculine interests were independently associated with higher Extroversion and lower verbal IQ, while violent-occult interests were independently associated with lower Agreeableness and lower Conscientiousness; both factors were associated with younger age.