Personality, High-Risk Activities and Aggressive Behaviour among Illegal Street Racers

The prevalence of motorcycle street racing is increasing in Malaysia and has become a major public concern. As a major focus of the international studies were on illegal car racing overseas, and there are only a limited number of studies address illegal motorcycle street racing. Thus, this study aims to examine the high-risk activities of motorcycle street racers, their personality and the association of personality with aggressiveness. This cross-sectional study involved 138 at risk adolescents who were engaged in illegal motorcycle street racing. Data were collected using three validated questionnaires – Big Five Inventory to measure personality, Impulsive Sensation Seeking Scale to measure sensation seeking trait, and the Buss and Perry Aggression Questionnaire to assess aggressiveness. The results showed that the majority of the respondents were not only engaged in illegal street racing but also involved in other high-risk activities, such as pornography, illegal abortion, fighting, and gambling. Neuroticism and sensation seeking were found to be associated and were good predictors of the aggression domain, such as physical aggression and anger. However, only sensation seeking and neuroticism were good predictors for verbal aggression and the hostility domain. Hence, it is very important to understand their personality trait and level of aggression beforehand in order to develop a suitable programme for this special group of adolescents as well as to find ways to channel their sensation seeking behaviour or aggression to positive effect.