Forensics - Esyenck's theory

Question 1

what is the criminal personality

Answer 1

Eysenck
- introversion-extraversion (E)
- neuroticism - stability (N)
- psychoticism - sociability (P)

Question 2

what is the biological basis

Answer 2

• personality traits are biological in origin and come about through the nervous system we inherent

Question 3

what are extraverts

Answer 3

• underactive nervous system
• seek excitment,stimulation
• likely engage in risk-tasking behaviours
• don’t condition early and don’t learn from their mistakes

Question 4

what are neurotics

Answer 4

• high level of reactivity in the sympathetic nervous system
• respond quickly - fight or flight system
• nervous, jumpy, anxious
• behaviour is harder to predict

Question 5

what are psychotics

Answer 5

• high levels of testosterone
• unemotional
• prone to aggression

Question 6

what is the criminal personality

Answer 6

neurotic-extravert-psychotic
- neurotics are unstable and overreact to situations of regret
- extraverts seek more arousal and engage in dangerous activities
- psychotics lack empathy

Question 7

what is the role of socialism

Answer 7

• offending behaviour is developmentally immature is selfish and demands immediate gratification
• offenders are impatient and cannot wait for things
• children are taught to become more able to delay gratification
• less likely that they learn anxiety responses to antisocial impulses

Question 8

how to measure the criminal personality

Answer 8

• Eysenck personality questionnaire
• locates respondents along the E,N and P dimensions to determine their personality type

Question 9

what are the strengths

Answer 9

Eysenck and Eysenck
- compared 2070 prisoners’ scores on the EPQ with 2422 controls
- prisoners scored higher scores than controls

Question 10

what are the limitations

Answer 10

Moffitt
- personality traits along were a poor predictor of how long offending behaviour would go on for
- more of a relationship between individual personality traits and the environmental reactions to the traits

Holanchock
- studied Hispanic and African American offenders in a maximum security prison
- all six groups were less extravert than a control
- Eysenck would expect them to be more extravert
- sample was a very different cultural group than Eysenck’s