Eysenck’s Theory Of The Criminal Personality Flashcards
What type of approach is this explanation
-psychological explanation but agrees criminal behaviour has a biological basis but more concerned with how that impacted individuals personality and the type of nervous system inherited
What is extroversion
Someone sociable, assertive and cheerful
-seek out novelty and excitement and enjoy being the centre of attention
-energised by spending time with people
What is introversion
-reserved, passive and thoughtful
-mostly interact in small groups and with one on one relationships
-energised by spending time alone
Is extroversion or introversion associated with criminal behaviour and why
Extroversion
-underactive NS (due to lower cortical arousal) which means they constantly seek excitement, stimulation and risk taking behaviour
-not easily conditioned so don’t learn from their mistakes
What is are characteristics of neuroticism
-difficulty coping with stress
-may focus on negative events
-nervous, jumpy and over anxious
-display unpredictable behaviour
Characteristics of stability
-resilient and less reactive to negative stimuli/events
-appear confident and usually have good sense of self esteem
-can manage challenging situations
Is neuroticism or stability associated with criminal behaviour and why
-neuroticism as high levels of reactivity in their sympathetic NS, respond quickly to situations of threat
What is psychoticism and it’s biological cause
Characterised by someone cold, unemotional, aggressive, manipulative, tough minded and impulsive
-leads to criminal behaviour as higher levels of testosterone, associated with aggression
Role of socialisation in criminal behaviour
-criminals developmentally immature
-individuals with high extroversion and neuroticism have NS that makes them difficult to condition
-due to lack of conditioning they do not learn via socialisation how to delay gratification nor do they develop the anxiety that comes with acting anti socially
-thus more likely to act anti socially in situations where the opportunity presented itself
Expand on limitation that Eysenck used a questionnaire to determine whether someone had a criminal personality
-ppts may lie due to social desirability bias
-personality also not stable so cannot be reduced to a score and is reflective of context so maybe no one constant personality type driving our behaviour
-challenges validity of questionnaire in its ability to measure personality and its usefulness
Expand on strength that approach takes interactionist approach
-considers both biological factors (personality traits like extraversion, neuroticism and psychopathy biologically based in terms of the type of nervous system inherited) and environmental factors (effectiveness of conditioning and socialisation)
-by recognising interaction between biology and environment it better reflects the multifaceted nature of human behaviour and therefore not oversimplified
-real world application in terms of interventions addressing conditioning/socialisation
Expand on limitation that theory cannot be generalised across cultures
-researcher studies Hispanic and African American individuals in maximum security prison and found that within 6 dif categories of offences all 6 groups were found to be less extraverted than non criminal control group
-suggests theory potentially uses ethnocentric definition of extraversion which is example of imposed etic (inappropriately applying definition to non western cultures)
Expand on limitation that there is inconsistent evidence surrounding role of cortical arousal
-theory proposed extroverts have lower cortical arousal leading them to seek external stimulation to increase arousal levels
-however there is inconsistent evidence in cortical arousal using EEGs between introverts and extroverts
-suggests arousal differences may not be as biologically rooted as Eysenck proposed suggesting other factors may play larger role eg environmental
