eysenck’s theory Flashcards
The criminal personality
Feature of Eysenck’s theory of crime
- An individual who scores highly on measures of extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism and cannot easily be conditioned, is cold and unfelling and is likely to engage in offending behaviour
Personality theory
- Middle of 20th C
- Proposed that behaviour could be represented along three dimensions: introversion-extraversion and neuroticism-stability - psychoticism-sociability added later
- Two dimensions combine to form traits
Biological basis
Personality traits are biological in origin - type of nervous system - innate biological basis
Extraverts
Underactive nervous system - constantly seek excitement, stimulation and engage in risk-taking behaviours
Tend not to condition easily - do not learn from mistakes
Neurotic
High level of reactivity in sympathetic nervous system - respond quickly to threat - nervous, overanxious, jumpy - general instability means behaviour is difficult to predict
Psychotic
Individuals suggested higher levels of testosterone - unemotional and prone to aggression
Criminal personality
Criminal personality type is neurotic-extravert-psychotic
Neurotics - unstable and prone to overreact
Extraverts - seek arousal and engage in dangerous activities
Psychotics - aggressive and lack empathy
Role of socialisation
Personality linked to offending behaviour through socialisation
Neurotic-extraverts do not condition easily so do not learn to respond to antisocial behaviour by becoming anxious, as most people do
Measuring criminal personality
Eyseneck Personality Questionnaire measures E, N and P to determine type, then linked to other variables
EVAL - Research support
P - support as evidence to support argument
E - Eysenck and Eysenck - compared 2070 prisoners’ scores on the eysenck personality questionnaire - 2422 controls
E - on measures of extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism - all age groups - prisoners recorded higher average scores than controls
L - agrees with predictions of the theory that offenders rate higher than average across the three dimensions Eysenck identified
P - limited as Farrington et al conducted meta-analysis of relevant studies
E - found offenders score high on psychoticism but not extraversion and neuroticism
E - inconsistent evidence of differences on EEG measures between extraverts and introverts
L - doubt on the psychological basis of eysenck’s theory - some of central assumptions of criminal personality have been challenged
EVAL - Too simplistic
P - limitation of idea all offending behaviour explained by personality traits alone
E - Moffitt - distinction between offending behaviour in adolescence - and that which continues into adulthood
E - personality traits - poor predictor of how long offending behaviour would go on for - ‘career offender’ - likely reciprocal process between personality traits and environmental reaction to those traits
L - presents a more complex picture than Eysenck suggested - determined by interaction between personality and environment
EVAL - Cultural factors
P - Limitation as cultural factors not taken into account
E - Bartol and Holanchock - studied hispanic and african-american offenders in maximum security in new york
E - divided these offenders into six groups based on offending history and nature of offences - all groups less extravert than non-offender control - because sample was a very different cultural group from that investigated by Eysenck
L - Questions how far the criminal personality can be generalised and suggests it may be culturally relative concept
EVAL - Measuring personality
P - Eysenck’s theory offers way to measure personality through psychological test - EPQ
E - we can see how criminal personality differs from rest of population across different dimensions
E - critics have suggested that personality type may not be reducible to a score
L - personality too complex and dramatic to be quantified - would also apply to personality deemed to be criminal
