Biometric and psychometric life history indicators (criminals and control group)
Description
The data files submitted here are related to the research, in which we compared psychological and biological indicators of life history strategies of criminals (N=84) and control group - men without criminal record (N=117), working as soldiers (N =32, the last 32 items in the dataset) and firefighters (N =85, the first 85 items in the dataset). We hypothesized that there would be differences in life history strategies employed by these two groups of subjects and we also expected that biological and psychological life history indicators used in the study would correlate with each other as, according to life history theory, they are reflections of one consistent life history strategy. We used two questionnaires: the Mini-K (Figueredo et al., 2006) used to assess psychological aspects of life history strategy and the questionnaire we created to measure biological life history variables such as age of the subjects’ parents at the appearance of their first child, father presence, number of biological siblings and step-siblings, twins in family, intervals between subsequent mother’s births, age at sexual onset, having children, age of becoming a father, number of offspring, number of women with whom the subjects have children and life expectancy. The research on criminals took place in medium-security correctional institution. Firefighters and soldiers participated in the study in their workplaces. All subjects were completing questionnaires in a paper-and-pencil version.The participation was voluntary. The results showed that criminals tended to employ faster life history strategies than men who have not been incarcerated, but this regularity only emerged in relation to biological variables. There were no intergroup differences in the context of psychological indicators of LH strategy measured by the Mini-K. Moreover, the overall correlation between the biological and psychological LH indicators used in this study was weak. Thus, in our study biological indicators proved to reliably reflect life history strategies of the subjects, in contrast to psychological variables. All statistical analysis was performed using SPSS and Statistica. Raw data as well as encoded data in SPSS format are attached. Figueredo, A.J., Vásquez, G., Brumbach, B.H., Schneider, S.M.R., Sefcek, J.A., Tal, I.R., Hill, D., Wenner, C.J., & Jacobs, W.J. (2006). Consilience and life history theory: From genes to brain to reproductive strategy. Developmental Review, 26, 243-275.