Abstract: Deceptive design patterns (DDPs) are manipulative web designs intended to steer users toward specific actions, representing a growing problem with tangible consequences, such as financial losses. While many studies have demonstrated that older users are more vulnerable to the influence of DDPs, the underlying mechanisms remain insufficiently understood. One possible explanation lies in the differing socialization experiences across age groups. Individuals born in 1980 or earlier largely grew up without the internet and are therefore considered digital immigrants, whereas those born after 1980 are labeled digital natives and are often assumed to possess a more natural and competent handling of digital devices. Therefore, our study focuses on differences between digital immigrants and digital natives to better understand the mechanisms underlying age-related vulnerability to DDP influence. We conducted an online experiment ( N = 107) based on Bongard-Blanchy et al. (2021) , in which participants were asked to identify DDPs across 10 website templates. We compared digital immigrants ( n = 33) and digital natives ( n = 74) with regard to detection ability, awareness of DDPs, emotional responses, and the use of mitigation strategies, and examined potential mediators of the effect of age on DDP detection. As expected, older participants showed lower detection ability and awareness, but reported employing more self-protective strategies compared to younger users. These findings suggest a more complex relationship between age and DDP-related behavior than previously assumed, in which increasing age simultaneously increases both vulnerability and protective factors.
: Research has shown that offenders differ from nonoffenders in personality traits such as aggression and anger. However, less is known about differences within offender subgroups and personality styles conceptually related to personality disorders but assessed at a subclinical level. In this study, we examined personality styles, aggression, and anger in 342 male offenders in Bavaria, Germany, using standardized self-report measures. We hypothesized that elevated personality styles conceptually related to Cluster-B personality disorders increased aggression and anger compared to normative samples and subgroup differences. Compared to normative data, offenders exhibited higher levels of paranoid, histrionic, and rhapsodic personality styles, and lower levels of aggression-related patterns. Subgroup analysis revealed that bodily harm offenders reported higher Cluster-B personality styles than sexual offenders and higher levels of aggression and anger. These findings underscore the importance of examining offender subgroups, as differences in personality styles appear to be associated with the type and expression of criminal behavior.
: This study examined the structural organization of relations between personality nuances and different types of criminal offenses using an item-offense approach. The sample consisted of 592 male prisoners in Croatia (Mage = 39.55 years, SDage = 11.16). Network analysis showed a central role of the nervousness nuance in offending and recidivism, as well as its importance in distinguishing between violent and nonviolent offenses. Nervousness was positively associated with violent offenses but negatively with nonviolent ones. Moreover, trustworthiness also emerged as a central nuance for violent offenses, while thoroughness and laziness were key for nonviolent offenses. Overall, this study offers valuable insight into the relations between personality and criminal behavior using an item-level approach.
: This longitudinal study examines whether personal moral rules and criminogenic exposure interact to predict youth offending in China and the UK. Testing the morality-exposure component of the situational action theory (SAT), three annual waves of self-reported data from adolescents aged 14-16 in China (n = 588) and the UK (n = 716) were analyzed. In the UK sample, lower moral rules and higher criminogenic exposure independently predicted greater delinquency, and their interaction further amplified risk. In the Chinese sample, moral rules and criminogenic exposure showed weaker and less consistent main effects, and the interaction term was nonsignificant at all three ages. Developmental patterns also differed across contexts. In the UK, morality appeared relatively more prominent by age 16, whereas in China, the overall model weakened markedly at age 15, which may reflect the constraining effects of intense examination preparation on unsupervised peer activity. These findings provide partial support for SAT. The main effects of moral rules and criminogenic exposure were observed in both contexts, though more consistently in the UK, while the morality-exposure interaction emerged only in the UK sample. SAT's general emphasis on the joint relevance of personal and environmental factors thus appears partially transportable across contexts, but the situational interaction at the core of the theory may be contingent on social structure, developmental timing, and the distribution of criminogenic opportunities.
