5. psychological explanations: Eysenck Flashcards
Eysenck proposed that behaviour could be represented along…
two dimensions:
· Introversion-extroversion (E)
· Neuroticism-stability (N)
He later added the third-dimension psychoticism-sociability (P)
According to Eysenck, our personality traits are biological in origin and come about through the nervous system we inherit.
So, the criminal personality type has an innate biological basis.
Explain neuroticism, extraversion and psychoticism dimensions.
· EXTRAVERTS have an underactive nervous system meaning they constantly seek excitement, simulation and are likely to engage in risk taking behaviours. They also tend not to condition easily and therefore do not learn from their mistakes.
· NEUROTIC individuals have a high level of reactivity in the sympathetic nervous system and respond quickly to situations of threat. This means they tend to me nervous, jumpy, and over-anxious; their general instability means their behaviour is often difficult to predict.
· PSYCHOTIC individuals are suggested to have higher levels of testosterone and are unemotional, prone to aggression.
THE CRIMINAL PERSONALITY is…
NEUROTIC-EXTRAVERT-PSYCHOTIC.
· Neurotics are unstable and therefore prone to overreact to situations of threat.
· Extraverts seek more arousal, thus engage in dangerous activity.
· Psychotics are aggressive and lack empathy.
Personality is linked to offending behaviour via socialisation. He saw offending behaviour as developmentally immature selfish and concerned with immediate gratification - offenders are impatient and can’t wait for things.
The process of socialisation is one in which children are taught to
become more able to delay gratification and more socially oriented. He believed that people with high E and N scores had nervous systems that made them difficult to condition. As a result, they are less likely to learn anxiety responses to antisocial impulses and consequently more likely to act antisocially in situations where the opportunity presented itself.
how did Eysenck measure personality?
Eysenck developed the Eysenck personality questionnaire (EPQ), a form of psychological test which locates respondents along the E, N and P dimensions to determine their personality type
AO3: strength of Eysenck’s theory
RESEARCH SUPPORT, Eysenck and Eysenck
There is evidence to support the criminal personality.
Eysenck and Eysenck compared 2070 prisoners’ scores on the EPQ with 2244 controls. On measures of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism, across all age groups, prisoners recorded higher average scores than controls.
This supports Eysenck’s theory as it agrees with the predictions of the theory that offenders’ rate higher than average across all three dimensions Eysenck identified
AO3: limitation of Eysenck’s theory
TOO SIMPLISTIC - Moffitt
The idea that all offending behaviour being explained by personality is too simplistic.
Moffitt drew a distinction between offending behaviour that occurs during adolescence and that which continues into adulthood. She argued that personality traits alone were a poor predictor of how long offending would go on for. She considered persistence in offending behaviour to be the result of a reciprocal process between individual personality traits and environmental reactions to those traits.
This presents a more complex picture than what Eysenck suggested, Moffitt argues that offending behaviour is determined by an interaction between personality and environment.
AO3: limitation of Eysenck’s theory
CULTURAL FACTORS - Holanchock
Eysenck’s theory does not take cultural factors into account.
The criminal personality may vary according to culture. Holanchock studied Hispanic and African - American offenders in a maximum-security prison. The researchers divided these offenders into 6 groups based on their offending history and nature of their offences. All 6 groups were found to be less extravert than a non-offender control group (Eysenck would expect them to be more introvert). He suggested that this was because the sample was a different cultural group from that investigated by Eysenck.
This suggests that the criminal personality may be a culturally relative concept and can’t be generalised across cultures.
