Eysenck's criminal personality Flashcards
What theory did Eysenck develop? What does it involve?
Theory of personality.
Based on the idea that character traits tend to cluster along three dimensions.
What’s the characteristics of extraversion?
Outgoing, having positive emotions but may get bored easily.
What’s the opposite of extraversion?
Introversion.
What’s the main characteristic of neuroticism?
The tendency to experience negative emotional states (anger, anxiety etc) rather than positive emotional states.
What’s the opposite of neuroticism?
Stability.
What are the main characteristics of psychoticism?
Egocentric, aggressive, impulsive, impersonal, lacking in empathy, generally not concerned about the welfare of other people.
What is the name of the personality test devised by Eysenck?
Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire (EPQ).
What did Eysenck suggest?
Each trait has a biological basis which is mainly innate.
Claimed that 67% of the variance for the traits is due to genetic factors.
What is extraversion determined by?
Overall level of arousal in a person’s nervous system.
Person who is under-aroused = requires more stimulation.
Over-aroused = avoids stimulation.
Extraverts seek external stimulation to increase the cortical arousal.
What is neuroticism determined by?
Level of stability in the sympathetic nervous system - how much a person responds in situations of threat (fight-or-flight).
What has psychoticism been related to? What does this mean?
High levels of testosterone.
This means that men are more likely to be found at this end of the spectrum.
How does the three dimensions of personality link to criminal behaviour?
Extraverts seek more arousal and therefore engage in dangerous activities.
Neurotics are unstable and therefore prone to over-react to situations of threat.
Psychoticism can be linked to criminality because individuals are aggressive and lacking empathy.
How did Eysenck explain criminality in terms of the outcome between innate personality and socialisation?
A person is born with certain personality traits, but interaction with environment is key in the development of criminality.
How does Eysenck’s explanation of criminality link to conditioning?
Normally, wrongdoing is avoided because of previous punishment.
However, Eysenck claimed that people who were high in extraversion and neuroticism were less easily conditioned.
They therefore do not learn to avoid antisocial behaviour.
What was Dunlop et al’s sample? What did they find?
Students and their friends (15-75 years).
Found that both extraversion and psychoticism were good predictors of delinquency.
What was an issue with Dunlop et al’s research?
Delinquency was an assessment of minor offences in the previous 12 months.
What type of study supports Eysenck’s theory that personality types have a biological basis?
Twin studies.
What did Zuckerman find?
Found +.52 correlation for MZ twins on neuroticism compared with +.24 for DZ twins.
This shows a large genetic component.
For extraversion, these figures were +.51 and +.12 respectively.
Zuckerman provided similar data for psychoticism.
How do Zuckerman’s finding compare to Eysenck’s claims? What do the findings suggest?
Shows a genetic component, however it was not as high as Eysenck had claimed, a +.50 correlation means that about 40% of the variance in these traits is due to genes.
This figure may also be slightly inflated because MZ twins are treated more similarly.
Why do many psychologists believe personality tests are inconsistent? What is an example?
A number of psychologists support a situational perspective, suggesting that people may be consistent in similar situations but not across situations.
Example:
Someone may be relaxed at home but neurotic at work.
What theory did Mischel and Peake’s research support? What was their sample? What did they ask them to do?
Situational theory.
Researchers asked family, friends and strangers, to rate 63 students in a variety of situations.
What did Mischel and Peake find? What’s a key conclusion for this research?
Found almost no correlation between traits displayed.
Any regularity of behaviour is likely to be due to the fact that we tend to often be in similar situations.
Why is the EPQ considered unreliable in terms of social desirability?
When a person answers the EPQ, they are responding to the demands of a questionnaire – they are asked to select traits that apply to them, but their responses may not represent reality.
People may tend towards a socially desirable answer and therefore their answers are not truthful.
Why is the EPQ considered unreliable in terms of identification of criminals?
Scores on a personality test are unlikely to ever enable the identification of criminals.
Even though the traits are good predictors of delinquency, it is not close enough to use as a means of detecting who is likely to become a criminal.
