Evaluation of Eysenck's Theory of Criminal Personality and Crime Flashcards
+ Raine
Raine took physiological measures from participants aged 15 years and related these to later criminal status. Those with a criminal record 24 years later had recorded more signs of under-arousal in the nervous system when aged 15 (suggesting extroversion), such as lower resting heart rate, than non-criminals - Backs up the theory’s link between under-arousal in extroversion and criminal behaviour, validating the theory
+ Boduszek
Boduszek investigated the prevalence of Eysenck’s personality traits among repeat offenders and found that a criminal thinking style is associated with high levels of psychoticism, extroversion, and neuroticism - research suggests link between personality styles (PEN) and criminality, validating the explanation of criminality
- More recent models
More recent models of personality such as the five-factor model accept Eysenck’s concepts but also add openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness - suggests Eysenck ignores other concepts of personality linking to crime, suggesting his theory to be an incomplete explanation of all types of crime
- Bartol
Bartol compared EPI scores of 398 inmates of African-American and Hispanic origin at a mazimum security prison in New York with 187 males job seekers who were matched in terms of age, class, race, and employment record. The study placed the criminals into 6 groups according to their crime. The results showed robbers to be the most extrovert and rapists to be the most introvert. However, all 6 groups were less extrovert than the control group. This is a completely different cultural groups than the white European Criminals that Eysenck conducted his research and based his theory on - rejects theory’s idea of extroversion leading to criminality, reducing its validity (suggests introverts may be more likely to link to some crimes, such as rape). Suggests also that the theory possesses cultural bias, reflecting personality of criminals of exclusively white Europeans, further reducing the population validity of the theory
