Eysneck's theory Flashcards
What are characteristics of those who score highly/ lowly on the Neuroticism scale?
- High=Prone to anxiety, variable moods and depression.
- Low= emotionally stable.
What is extroversion?
- The amount of external stimulation a person craves.
- Extroverts are typically impulsive (relevant to many offenders).
Eysneck (broad assumptions)
- Eysneck argued that personality is innate, that each of us is born with specific personality traits and temperament.
Eysneck: criminal behaviour
- Eysneck believed that criminal behaviour is associated with individuals who score high on both E & N.
- This combination means that individuals can be impulsive, constantly seek stimulation and fail to learn from their punishments.
What was the third dimension that Eysneck added?
- Psychoticism.
- Psychotic individuals are uncaring, aggressive and solitary (and more likely to be involved in criminal activity).
Eysneck: nervous system (broad statement)
- He stated that criminals and psychopaths exhibit distinctive personality traits or behaviour patterns that are a product of inherited types of nervous system.
Eysneck: central nervous system (detail)
- Criminals are more likely to have a chronically underactive central NS leading them to display extraverted behaviours.
- They are:
1. Sensation seeking.
2. Risk taking.
*Also extraverts do not condition easily and do not learn from mistakes.
Eysneck: autonomic nervous system
- He also claimed that criminals score high on neuroticism.
- This is a result of the autonomic nervous system responding quickly to stress.
- Neuroticism leads to unstable, unpredictable behaviour.
1. Prone to overreacting.
2. Volatile.
Conscience in offenders
- Eysneck believed that criminals are developmentally immature- they have failed to develop a conscience (which functions to restrain deviant behaviours).
- He explained that the selfish behaviours and those concerned with immediate gratification seen in criminals are a product of failed socialisation.
The process of socialisation
- Children are taught to delay gratification and become more socially oriented.
- This is learnt through conditioning:
1. When children act in immature ways they are punished, consequently they come to associate anxiety with antisocial behaviour.
2. Where this process is successful, even thinking about behaving antisocially produces anxiety, so the person avoids doing it.
The criminal personality (socialisation)
- Because criminals are typically extraverts, they cannot be conditioned easily and so they do not learn to respond to antisocial impulses with anxiety.
- This means they are more likely to act antisocially.
Research support (Eysneck and his wife)
- Eysneck and his wife assessed 2070 male prisoners who were compared to a control group of 2422 males.
- Prisoners recorded higher scores on measures of E, N and P than the control group.
Research support (Furnham)
Furnham: 210 UK non-delinquents were tested for personality, level of moral guidance and social skills.
- The best predictor of self reported delinquency was P, then N, then moral guidance, followed by E, then social skills.
Research support (Farringdon)
- Found that research depends on the measure used for level of offending behaviour, ‘official’ offenders (caught & convicted) are high in N and low in E, whereas when a self report measure is used for criminal activity, those who report criminal behaviour are actually low in N and high in E.
Evaluation (Evidence)
- Evidence to support the link between personality traits and criminal behaviour.
- Discuss the value of EPI as a tool to measure personality- reliability and validity issues.
- Discuss issues of cause and effect.
- Is it possible to have these criminal personality traits and not offend- how can this be explained?
