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Big Five Personality Traits of Cybercrime Victims

Article  in  Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking · June 2017

DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2017.0028

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 CYBERPSYCHOLOGY, BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING
Volume 00, Number 00, 2017 ORIGINAL ARTICLE
ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2017.0028

Big Five Personality Traits of Cybercrime Victims

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Steve G.A. van de Weijer, PhD, and E. Rutger Leukfeldt, PhD

Abstract

The prevalence of cybercrime has increased rapidly over the last decades and has become part of the everyday
life of citizens. It is, therefore, of great importance to gain more knowledge on the factors related to an
increased or decreased likelihood of becoming a cybercrime victim. The current study adds to the existing body
of knowledge using a large representative sample of Dutch individuals (N = 3,648) to study the relationship
between cybercrime victimization and the key traits from the Big Five model of personality (i.e., extraversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience). First, multinomial logistic
regression analyses were used to examine the associations between the personality traits and three victim
groups, that is, cybercrime victims versus nonvictims, traditional crime victims versus nonvictims, and cy-
bercrime victims versus traditional crime victims. Next, logistic regression analyses were performed to predict
victimization of cyber-dependent crimes (i.e., hacking and virus infection) and cyber-enabled crimes (i.e.,
online intimidation, online consumer fraud, and theft from bank account). The analyses show that personality
traits are not specifically associated with cybercrime victimization, but rather with victimization in general.
Only those with higher scores on emotional stability were less likely to become a victim of cybercrime than
traditional crime. Furthermore, the results indicate that there are little differences between personality traits
related to victimization of cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent crimes. Only individuals with higher scores on
openness to experience have higher odds of becoming a victim of cyber-enabled crimes.

Keywords: Big Five; personality; cybercrime; victimization; hacking; online fraud

Introduction The current study adds to the existing body of knowledge,

by studying the relationship between the key traits from the

C ybercrime is on the rise and poses a big threat to our

digitized society. The prevalence of cybercrime has in-
creased rapidly and has become part of the everyday life of
Big Five model and cybercrime victimization. Little is known
about the personality traits that are related to victimization
of crime. The scarce studies that do study the personality of
citizens. For example, Statistics Netherlands reported that in victims focus on victimization of traditional types of
2015, 5.1 percent of Dutch citizens were victims of hacking, crime.13,14 Up to now, no previous study has investigated the
3.5 percent of online consumer fraud, and 0.6 percent of personality of victims of cybercrime.
identity theft.1 Furthermore, a recent field trial of the Crime This article’s aim is to contribute to the knowledge about
Survey for England and Wales shows almost 2.5 million the personality characteristics of individuals who are the most
hacking and malware incidents in 12 months.2 at risk to become victims of cybercrime. With this knowledge,
With the ongoing digitization of our society, it is expected insights into opportunities for preventions are provided. The
that cybercrime victimization will only increase in the future. research question of the current study is twofold. First, it will
It is, therefore, of great importance to gain more knowledge be examined on which key traits from the Big Five model of
on the factors related to an increased or decreased likelihood personality (i.e., extraversion, agreeableness, conscientious-
of becoming a cybercrime victim. This is recognized by ness, emotional stability, and openness to experience) victims
cybercrime scholars, and various studies into cybercrime of cybercrime differ from victims of traditional crime and
victimization have been done. However, the vast majority of nonvictims. Second, it will be examined whether victims of
these studies focus on the influence of self-control and the specific types of cybercrimes (i.e., hacking, online intimida-
routine activities of victims (see, for example3–12). tion, virus infection, online consumer fraud, and theft from

Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

1
 2 VAN DE WEIJER AND LEUKFELDT

bank account) differ on these personality traits compared to positively related to victimization of both harsh and mild
nonvictims. cyberbullying.
The associations between Big Five personality traits and
cybercrime victimization might not be the same for all types
Personality, Self-Control, and Victimization
of cybercrime. In general, two types of cybercrimes are
Although no previous studies have investigated the link distinguished.24 The first category is called cyber-dependent
between the Big Five personality traits and cybercrime vic- crimes and includes new types of crimes which are aimed at
timization, several studies have examined the level of self- Information Technology (IT) and committed through the use
control among victims of different types of cybercrime. of IT (e.g., hacking). Cyber-dependent crimes form the
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According to Gottfredson and Hirschi’s15 general theory of second category and include traditional crimes which are not
crime, individuals with a lower self-control are more risk- focused on IT, but for which IT is essential to commit the
taking, impulsive, shortsighted, insensitive to others, and offence (e.g., fraud through the internet). In this study we
seek more immediate and easy gratification. They are will explore whether victims of cyber-enabled crimes (i.e.,
therefore more likely to be involved in criminal behavior. online intimidation, online consumer fraud, and theft from
Schreck16 argued that this theory could also be used to pre- bank account) differ from nonvictims on other personality
dict criminal victimization, since a lack of preventive be- traits, than victims of cyber-dependent crimes (i.e., hacking
havior due to shortsightedness and risk-taking makes people and virus infection).
more vulnerable to be victimized. According to Holtfreter,
Reisig, and Pratt,17 a low self-control is specifically a risk Methods
factor for noncontact crimes like fraud and cybercrime be-
Data
cause at least some degree of victim cooperation is necessary
for perpetration to be successful. In accordance with this line In this article we make use of data of the LISS (Long-
of reasoning, it has been shown that individuals with lower itudinal Internet Studies for the Social sciences) panel
levels of self-control are at increased risk to become a victim administered by CentERdata. The LISS panel is a repre-
of some types of cybercrime.7,11,18A meta-analysis of Pratt sentative sample of Dutch individuals who participate in
et al.19 showed that self-control is a modest yet consistent monthly internet surveys. The panel is based on a true
predictor of victimization risk and that this association is probability sample of households drawn from the population
even more robust when predicting noncontact forms of vic- register. Households that could not otherwise participate are
timization, such as cybercrime victimization. provided with a computer and Internet connection, to ensure
Jones, Miller, and Lynam20 made the argument that the sufficient participation of elderly people, the unemployed,
Big Five personality traits agreeableness, conscientiousness, and low-income households (about 5 percent of the total
and emotional stability capture many elements (e.g., impul- sample). All household members of age 15 and older were
sivity and insensitivity to others) of self-control as identified asked to complete the surveys. A longitudinal survey is
in Gottfredson and Hirschi’s15 theory. The overlap between fielded in the panel every year, covering a large variety of
self-control and agreeableness and conscientiousness has domains, including work, education, income, housing, time
also been empirically shown by Van Gelder and De Vries21 use, political views, values, and personality. The total
who found these traits to be important correlates with panel consists of 4,500 households, comprising about 7,000
Grasmick’s self-control scale.22 Based on this overlap and individuals.
the previous studies on the level of self-control of cybercrime This study uses data from two surveys from the LISS
victims, we expect that victims of cybercrime score different panel, one that measures crime victimization and one that
on the agreeableness and conscientiousness scales than measures personality characteristics. The most recent survey
nonvictims. on crime victimization was used, which was conducted in
No previous studies have tested this hypothesis among February 2012 and measures crime victimization in the past
victims of cybercrimes, but some studies did investigate the 2 years, spanning the period between February 2010 and
association between Big Five personality traits and victimi- February 2012. The key traits from the Big Five model of
zation of traditional crime and victimization of cyberbully- personality were measured annually. In this study we use the
ing. Wilcox et al.14 used a 4-year panel study of 2,220 most recent measurement before February 2010. For most
adolescents and showed a negative association between respondents this means that the personality traits were
criminal victimization and agreeableness and conscien- measured in May and June 2009. If respondents did not
tiousness. However, this was not a direct effect but an indi- participate in the survey in 2009, data from May 2008 are
rect effect mediated by having delinquent peers and exposure used. Only respondents with valid answers on all personality
to illicit goods. A study of Ellrich and Baier13 among 1,803 traits and crime victimization were included in the analyses.
German police officers, on the other hand, only found that The final sample consisted out of 3,648 respondents. The
those with higher scores on openness to experience and average age of these respondents was 51.29 years (standard
neuroticism (i.e., lower scores on emotional stability) were deviation [SD]: 15.92) and 46.9 percent of them were male.
more likely to be violently attacked. In a study among 572 Among these respondents, 89.9 percent was from Dutch
young adult Facebook users, Peluchette et al.23 found a lot of origin, while the remaining respondents were either born
significant relationships between personality traits and online abroad or had at least one parent who was born in another
behavior, such as frequency of internet use, number of Fa- country. Most respondents (63.5%) were married, while 23.1
cebook friends, posting indiscrete content, and having percent of the respondents were never married, 8.8 percent
friends posting indiscrete content. However, only extraver- was divorced or separated, and 4.6 percent was a widow or
sion and openness to experience were significantly and widower.
 PERSONALITY TRAITS OF CYBERCRIME VICTIMS 3

Measurements use a scale ranging from 1 ‘‘very inaccurate’’ to 5 ‘‘very

The dependent variable in this study is cybercrime vic- accurate’’ to answer these 50 items. These 50 statements can
timization. This was measured by asking the respondents to be found on the website of the IPIP (http://ipip.ori.org/
indicate whether they fell victim to seven types of cyber- newBigFive5broadKey.htm). Based on these scores a scale
crime in the last 2 years. Those seven types of cybercrime are ranging from 0 to 40 was constructed for each of the Big Five
summarized in Table 1. Two control groups were con- traits. The respondents had an average score on the extra-
structed, one with respondents who were only victimized by version scale of 21.67 (SD: 7.34). This trait involves the
traditional crime and one with respondents who were not following facets: friendliness, gregariousness, assertiveness,
victimized at all. The seven items used to measure victimi- activity level, excitement seeking, and cheerfulness. The
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zation of traditional crime are also summarized in Table 1. mean score on the agreeableness scale was 27.78 (SD: 7.05).
Respondents who fell victim to both a cybercrime and a The agreeableness scale involves the following domains:
traditional crime are included in the group of cybercrime trust, morality, altruism, cooperation, modesty, and sympa-
victims. Only those who are only victimized by a traditional thy. The average score on the conscientiousness scale was
crime are included in the group of traditional crime victims. 26.32 (SD: 7.12) and this scale comprises the following
This resulted in a groups of 550 cybercrime victims (15.1 facets: self-efficacy, orderliness, dutifulness, achievement
percent), 513 traditional crime victims (14.1 percent), and striving, self-discipline, and cautiousness. The respondents
2,585 nonvictims (70.9 percent). had a mean score of 23.36 (SD: 7.84) on the scale for emo-
The independent variables in this study are the key traits tional stability. This scale comprises the following domains:
from the Big Five model of personality. These traits were anxiety, anger, depression, self-consciousness, immodera-
measured using 50 items (i.e., 10 items per domain) from the tion, and vulnerability. The scores on the openness to ex-
International Personality Item Pool (IPIP).25 Respondents perience scale had an average of 23.90 (SD: 6.53). This scale
were asked: ‘‘Please use the rating scale below to describe involves the following facets: imagination, artistic interests,
how accurately each statement describes you’’. They could emotionality, adventurousness, intellect, and liberalism.

Analyses
Table 1. Items Used to Measure Victimization
To examine the associations between the personality traits
Cybercrime Traditional crime and the three victim groups, a multinominal logistic regres-
sion analysis was used since this is a categorical dependent
Could you please indicate for the following crimes whether variable. In these analyses, three comparisons were made
you fell victim to it in the last 2 years, thus since February
2010? between the three victim groups, that is, cybercrime victims
Intimidation by e-mail, SMS, Intimidation by any other versus nonvictims, traditional crime victims versus non-
MSN, or any other means (e.g., by letter, victims, and cybercrime victims versus traditional crime vic-
electronic channel telephone, or tims. Next, five separate logistic regression analyses were
face-to-face) performed to predict victimization of hacking, online intimi-
Others gained access to Burglary or attempted dation, virus infection, online consumer fraud, and theft from
your computer without burglary (of your home, bank account. Logistic regression analyses were used because
permission shed, or garage) the dependent variables in these analyses were binary (i.e.,
Your computer was infected Theft from your car being a victim of a specific type of cybercrime or not). These
by a virus that caused analyses are not performed for victimization of stolen credit
damage, for instance, by
deleting files on the hard card numbers and identity fraud because the number of victims
disk of these 2 crimes (32 and 11, respectively) was too low.
Your credit card number was Theft of your wallet or Besides the 5 scales of the personality traits also gender and
stolen and used to make a purse, handbag, or other age (at February 2012) were included as control variables in
purchase, without your personal possession (in all analyses.
knowledge the street, from a
wardrobe, etc.)
You bought something Wreckage of your car or Results
through the Internet or other private property The results of the multinominal logistic regression ana-
e-mail, but did not (garden, bicycle, etc.)
lyses are displayed in Table 2. In Model 1 the personality
receive the product
There was money taken from Maltreatment of such traits of cybercrime victims are compared to those of non-
your bank account, without serious nature that it victims. Against our expectation, a significant association
your permission required medical was found for conscientiousness, but not for agreeableness.
attention Individuals who were more conscientious have a decreased
Someone has used your Maltreatment that did risk to become a victim of cybercrime (Odds Ratio[OR]:
personal information for not require medical 0.981). In addition, also people who showed more emotional
identity fraud (e.g., because attention stability were less likely to be victimized by cybercrime (OR:
someone pretended to be 0.959), while those who were more open to experience were
you after committing an more likely to be a victim of cybercrime (OR: 1.044).
offense, with the use of
Moreover, the control variables show that men and young
medical care, or with
applying for a mortgage) people were more likely to become victims of cybercrime
than women and older people.
 4 VAN DE WEIJER AND LEUKFELDT

Table 2. Odds Ratios from Multinominal Logistic Regression Analyses Predicting Victimization
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Victim group Cybercrime Only traditional crime Cybercrime
Reference group Nonvictim Nonvictim Only traditional crime
Extraversion 1.006 1.003 1.003
Agreeableness 1.014 1.014 1.000
Conscientiousness 0.981a 0.969b 1.012
Emotional stability 0.959c 0.983a 0.975b
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Openness to experience 1.044c 1.026a 1.018

Gender (ref. = female) 1.394b 0.911 1.530b
Age 0.981c 0.993a 0.989b
N 3,135 3,098 1,063
a
p < 0.05 (two sided); bp < 0.01; cp < 0.001.

In Model 2 the personality traits of traditional crime vic- Next, it was examined whether victimization of specific
tims are compared to those of nonvictims. Similar to the types of cybercrime could be predicted by the key traits from
result in Model 1, significant associations were found be- the Big Five model of personality. Table 3 shows the results
tween victimization of traditional crime and conscientious- of these logistic regression analyses. Individuals with higher
ness (OR: 0.969), emotional stability (OR: 0.983), and scores on emotional stability were significantly more likely
openness to experience (OR: 1.026). Younger individuals to become a victim of all types of cybercrime except hacking.
were also more likely to become victims of traditional Table 3 also shows that those who were more open to ex-
crime, while no significant difference in victimization risk periences were significantly more likely to become a vic-
was found between men and women. tim of hacking (OR: 1.069) and a virus infection (OR: 1.029).
In Model 3, the personality traits of cybercrime victims are Moreover, scores on conscientiousness were shown to have a
compared to those who were only victimized by traditional significant and negative relationship with victimization of
crimes. Emotional stability was the only personality trait in online intimidation (OR: 0.940). The results for the control
this model that significantly predicts cybercrime victimiza- variables show that young individuals were significantly less
tion. Victims who were more emotionally stable were sig- likely to become a victim of online intimidation, a virus
nificantly less likely to have been a victim of cybercrime infection, and online consumer fraud. Men were also sig-
(OR: 0.975). Moreover, men and young people were sig- nificantly more likely to become a victim of online consumer
nificantly more likely to have been a victim of cybercrime fraud than women. The Nagelkerke R2’s in Table 3 range
than women and older people. The Nagelkerke R2 of the between 0.015 and 0.023 and would be even lower when
multinominal logistic regression model is 0.046, which in- other pseudo R2 measures were used, which indicates that
dicates that approximately 4.6 percent of the variance of the only a small proportion of the variance in victimization could
victim groups could be explained by the personality traits, be explained in each model.
gender, and age. The pseudo R2 would even be lower if other
measures of the explained variance were used, such as the
Discussion
McFadden R2 (0.023) or the Cox-Snell R2 (0.037). This
further illustrates that this multinominal logistic regression In this article, data from a large representative sample of
model only explains a little bit of the variance. Dutch individuals were used to examine the associations

Table 3. Odds Ratios from Logistic Regression Analyses Predicting Cybercrime Victimization
Money
taken
Online from
Virus Online consumer bank
Type of crime infection Hacking intimidation fraud account
Extraversion 1.008 1.010 1.036 1.014 1.006
Agreeableness 1.002 0.976 1.010 1.018 1.030
Conscientiousness 0.991 0.978 0.940a 0.970 1.027
Emotional stability 0.967c 0.976 0.951a 0.932c 0.960b
Openness to 1.029a 1.069b 1.030 1.025 1.022
experience
Gender (ref. = female) 1.306 0.902 1.095 1.782b 1.459
Age 0.989a 1.003 0.976b 0.981b 0.992
Nagelkerke R2 0.020 0.015 0.061 0.061 0.023
N total 3,255 3,208 3,642 3,289 3,286
N victims 267 82 56 111 126
a
p < 0.05 (one sided); bp < 0.01; cp < 0.001
 PERSONALITY TRAITS OF CYBERCRIME VICTIMS 5

between cybercrime victimization and key traits from the associations that were found. Third, the Nagelkerke R2 of the
Big Five model of personality. Results showed that lower regression models is relative low. This means that person-
scores on conscientiousness and emotional stability and ality traits only explain a little part of the variance in cy-
higher scores on openness to experience were significantly bercrime victimization and that other relevant variables were
related to victimization risk of cybercrime. Previous studies not included in the models. Fourth, although we used a
showed that a low self-control is related to cybercrime vic- representative sample of Dutch households, these results
timization7,11,18 and that the traits conscientiousness and might not be generalizable to citizens from other countries.
agreeableness show both conceptual20 and empirical21 overlap Since the Netherlands has a high Internet penetration rate,
with self-control. Against our expectation, however, only the chance to become a victim of cybercrime might be dif-
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conscientiousness was shown to be related to cybercrime ferent compared to countries with a lower rate.
victimization in the current study, while no significant rela- Future studies could further investigate whether the as-
tionship was found with agreeableness. In addition, also lower sociations between personality traits and cybercrime vic-
scores on emotional stability and higher scores on openness timization that were found in this study reflect direct effects
to experience were shown to be associated with cybercrime or rather are mediated by other factors. The study by Wilcox
victimization. et al,14 for example, showed that the relationship between
Remarkably, the same three personality traits (i.e., con- personality traits and traditional crime victimization was an
scientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experi- indirect effect mediated by having delinquent peers and ex-
ence) were also significantly related to victimization of posure to illicit goods. Moreover, Peluchette et al.23 showed
traditional crime. This similarity in results for cybercrime that the Big Five personality traits were also related to online
and traditional crime indicates that these personality traits behavior (e.g., frequency of Internet use, number of Face-
are not specifically associated with cybercrime victimization, book friends, and posting indiscrete content). It would be
but rather with victimization in general. A comparison be- recommended if future studies examine whether the associ-
tween cybercrime victims and traditional crime victims ation between personality traits and cybercrime victimiza-
showed that only those with higher scores on emotional tion is mediated by such factors as delinquent friends and
stability were less likely to become a victim of cybercrime online behavior. Moreover, in future research, new types of
than traditional crime. data should be used to measure risk on cybercrime victimi-
As cybercrimes differ in nature, differences were expected zation. Actual online behavior, for example, can be measured
in personality traits related to victimization of cyber- based on log files of computers of users theirselves, on sys-
dependent crimes and cyber-enabled crimes. However, our tems of schools or employers or Internet service providers.
analyses show that this only applies to openness to experi- Including such information might lead to a better prediction
ence. Individuals with higher scores on openness to experi- of cybercrime victimization, which would make it easier to
ence have higher odds of becoming a victim of hacking or take preventive measures.
virus infection, but not of becoming a victim of the cyber-
enabled crimes. Perhaps this is related with the modus ope- Acknowledgments
randi of hackers and malware attacks (see, for example,
Leukfeldt, Kleemans, and Stol26). A common method, for The LISS panel data were collected by CentERdata (Til-
example, is sending e-mails with an infected attachment. burg University, The Netherlands) through its MESS project
Users are persuaded to click on a link in the e-mail or open an funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Re-
attachment. Once this is done, the computer of the user is search.
compromised. Perhaps the e-mail is drafted in such a way
that users with a high degree of openness to experience are Author Disclosure Statement
more inclined to perform the task. Future studies into the
content of spam e-mails should include this psychological No competing financial interests exist.
factor.
The current study has several strengths. A first strength is References
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