Influence of Personality and Social Factors on Delinquent Behaviour among Secondary School Adolescents in Rivers State

The study investigated influence of personality and social factors on delinquent behaviour among secondary school adolescents in Obio/Akpor LGA of Rivers State. The design for the study was expost-facto. The sample for the study was 300 students. Two instruments were used to collect data for the study and they were Adolescent delinquent Behaviour and Neo-Personality inventory with reliability of 0.77 and 0.82 respectively. Five research questions as well as five hypotheses were answered and tested for in the study. Responses for answering research question 1 were analysed with multiple regression, those for research question 2 with beta values associated with multiple regression. Research question 3 and 4 were answered with mean and standard deviation. Hypotheses 1 was tested with ANOVA associated with multiple regression, hypotheses 2 was tested with multiple regression while hypotheses 3 and 4 were tested with independent t-test. The study found that, extraversion and openness to experience jointly had about 5.4% influence on the variations on the development of delinquent behaviour, Furthermore, adolescents whose peer group is clique had a higher mean scores on the development of delinquency than those whose peer group is isolates. Based on the findings; it was recommended that, educational programmes should be organized which will help young people learn how to engage in positive self-appraisal, deal with conflict and control aggression. Contributions to knowledge were made.