eysenck's personality theory

Question 1

what does eyesnck believe?

Answer 1

that everyone is born with one of five personalities; extroversion, introversion, neurotic, emotionally stable and psychopath. - dimensions within personalities related to the underlying functions of the CNS.

Question 2

what is neurotic personality?

Answer 2

moodiness and overly emotional.

Question 3

what is psychopathy?

Answer 3

hard to deal with reality, manipulative and anti-social.

Question 4

what three personalities can be associated with anti-social/criminal behaviour?

Answer 4

• extroversion
• neuroticism
• psychopath `

Question 5

what is meant by extroversion?

Answer 5

• seeking outward stimulus (thrillseeker)

Question 6

what did eysnck believe about how personality came about?

Answer 6

he said it was “given” and is at least part genetic.

Question 7

what activates the recticular activating system (RAS) ?

Answer 7

• it is activated through arousal

- which occurs in the brain stem and the ANS (autonomic nervous system) and endocrine system

Question 8

what is the RAS responsible for?

Answer 8

• it connects the brain to the thalamus and hypothalamus

- it is responsible for moving from states of sleeping and waking

Question 9

what is the accending RAS? (ARAS)

Answer 9

stimulares the cerebral cortex and leads to high arousal.

- it gets the body ready for action causing your heart to speed up and pupils to dilate.

Question 10

how many psychoticism cause criminal behaviour?

Answer 10

• relates to hormones such as testosterone and cortisol
• psychopaths tend to have low levels of cortisol arousal
• they lack a social conscience and therefore do not focus on such behaviours as being wrong.

Question 11

how neuroticism cause criminal behaviour?

Answer 11

• they have a low activation threshold in the sympathetic nervous system regarding fight or flight
• their response would be jumpy and experience the fight or flight reactions when others would consider them to be minor stresses.

Question 12

how is extroversion implicated in criminal behaviour?

Answer 12

• they have a high activation threshold in the cns which suggests that it takes more for them to feel excitement or satisfaction.
• therefore this may mean that they do dangerous activities (crime) in order to achieve this excitement (thrill-seeking).

Question 13

what did Rushton and Chrisjohn (1981) find?

Answer 13

• clear relationship between high deliquency scores of extroversion and psychoticism but not neuroticism.

Question 14

what did Boduzek find?

Answer 14

• higher levels of extroversion resulted in greater probability of commiting violent crimes.

Question 15

what is a weakness of this study?

Answer 15

that it doesn’t consider how personality may change over time.