L5 - Eyesenck’s Theory Of The Criminal Personality

Question 1

Eyesenck’s theory

Answer 1

• Eysenck (1947) our personality traits are biological in origin and come about through the type of nervous system we inherit from our parents.
• Therefore, all personality types have an innate biological basis.
• Offenders have distinctive inherited/genetic personality traits, they are high in neuroticism, extraversion and psychoticism.

Question 2

Extraversion

Answer 2

• People with a high extraversion score are impulsive and seek sensation which draws them to the thrill of criminal behaviour
• talkative, expressive, outgoing behaviour patterns

Question 3

Neuroticism

Answer 3

• tend towards offending because they are
  unstable and unpredictable - mood changes all the time
  -Eysenck believed that people with a high neuroticism score had inherited a nervous systems that made them difficult to condition, as a result they will not learn easily from their mistakes.
• overthink, anxious, depressed, have feelings of self doubt

Question 4

Psychoticism

Answer 4

• cold, lack empathy, prone to aggression
• may engage in anti-social behaviour
• can lose contact with reality

Question 5

Evaluation

Answer 5

• study review
• simplistic
• modern theory
• cultural differences
• measurable

Question 6

Study review

Answer 6

• Farrington et al. (1982) reviewed several studies and reported that offenders tended to score higher on psychoticism, but NOT on extraversion and neuroticism, when compared to non-offenders.

Question 7

Simplistic

Answer 7

• The idea that all offending behaviour can be explained by a single personality type has been heavily criticised as being 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.

Question 8

Modern theory

Answer 8

• Eysenck ‘s theory is out of step with modern personality theory.
• Digman’s (1990) Five Factor Model of personality suggests that openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness are important personality dimensions, in addition to extraversion and neuroticism.

Question 9

Cultural differences

Answer 9

• Bartol and Holanchock (1979) looked into cultural differences.
• They studied
  Hispanic and African-American offenders in a maximum security prison in New York and divided them into six groups based on their criminal history and the nature of their offences. - All six groups were found to be LESS extravert than non-criminal control groups.
• This means Eysenck’s theory could be culturally
  biased.

Question 10

Measurable

Answer 10

• Eysenck’s theory is based on the idea that it is possible to measure personality through psychological tests.
• 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