Identifying psychological factors predicting drug buying and selling behavior in people

From a pathological perspective, drugs are a strategic and multifaceted threat, one aspect of which may become more prominent over time than others. This threat endangers not only individual security but also national security and the ontological or existential security of a society. The current study aimed to investigate the predictive psychological factors of individuals who were involved in drug dealing. This is a descriptive study whose statistical population included all people who lived in Lordegan in 2019. The target group comprised 50 drug dealers that were selected by the chain sampling method (snowball), while another group was composed of 50 people who were not addicted and did not participate in drug dealing. The latter group was selected by the available sampling method. Zuckerman Excitement Questionnaire (1978) and Johnson & Wister's (2010) dark personality questionnaire were used to gather information, and the data were analyzed using the SPSS software version 24. The findings showed that the variables of age and marital status (single or divorced), seeking of emotion and all subscales of dark personality traits except narcissism were the strong predictors of drug dealing. Also, the comparison of drug dealers with the control group showed that there was a significant difference in the degree of dark personality traits and excitement between the two studied groups. It is important to know the factors influencing the initiation of substance use to determine preventive measures. It is worth mentioning that individuals differ not only in terms of excitement levels but also in personality. The understanding of how personality influences the propensity to engage in criminal activities, including drug dealing, could be of particular significance. The motivation for the drug trade results from a combination of psychological, emotional, and social factors, and people's emotions are used as psychological mechanisms to moderate the incompatible and dark traits of their personalities.