Eysenck's theory of the criminal personality Flashcards
What did Eysenck (1947) say about criminal personality?
Our personality traits are biological in origin and come about through the type of nervous system we inherit from our parents.
What distinctive inherited/genetic personality traits do offenders have?
Neuroticism, extraversion and psychoticism
What are people high in extraversion like?
Impulsive and seek sensation which draws them to the thrill of criminal behaviour.
What are people high in neuroticism like?
tend towards offending because they are unstable and unpredictable.
What does Eysenck say about people with high neuroticism?
They had inherited a nervous systems that made them difficult to condition, as a result they will not learn easily from their mistakes.
What are people with high psychoticism like?
They are cold, lack empathy and are prone to aggression.
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What are the disadvantages of Eysencks theory?
- Farrington et al (1982) - Simplistic - Out of step with modern personality theory - Cultural differences - Hard to measure personality
What did Farrington et al (1982) find?
He reviewed several studies and reported that offenders tended to score higher on psychoticism, but NOT on extraversion and neuroticism, when compared to non-offenders.
How is Eysenck’s theory simplistic?
Crime is too varied and complex a behaviour to be due to one single personality type, the type of individual who commits murder is likely to be very different to one who commits fraud.
How is Eysenck’s theory out of step with modern personality theory?
Digman’s (1990) Five Factor Model of personality
Digman’s (1990) Five Factor Model of personality
Suggests that openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness are important personality dimensions, in addition to extraversion and neuroticism.
Who looked at the cultural differences of Eysenck’s theory?
Bartol and Holanchock (1979)
Bartol and Holanchock (1979)
Studied Hispanic and African-American offenders in a max security prison in NY, dividing them into 6 groups based on criminal history and the nature of offences. All 6 groups were found to be less extravert than non-criminal control groups.
How is it hard to measure personality in Eysenck’s theory and what issues does this cause?
Critics have argued that personality may not be reducible to a score in this way. Many psychologists believe there is no such thing as stable personality, on a daily basis people’s personality changes depending who they are with and the situation they are in.
