personality as an explanation of anti-social behaviour

Question 1

explain how personality is a factor in anti-social behaviour

Answer 1

• personality makes us who we are as individuals, it explains out interests, how we interact with others and our overall outlook on life
• eysenck has look at the personality traits of an individual such as: extraversion, introversion, neuroticism, stability and psychoticism
• a criminal personality displayed the following: high psychoticism, high extraversion and high neuroticism
• he linked extraversion to a state of arousal in the brain, extraverts are under aroused and need external stimulation
• he linked weak nervous systems which have low thresholds for signalling in the brain to introversion, therefore activity in the brain happens sooner
• he linked strong nervous systems which have high thresholds for signalling in the brain to extraversion, activity in the brain is triggered slowly
• eysenck suggests that extraverts need excitement and so are more likely to seek out crime

Question 2

list and explain the dimensions of eysencks personality theory

Answer 2

• extraversion: behaviour is outgoing and sociable
• introversion: individuals are reserved and reflective
• neuroticism: emotional instability
• stability: an individual is emotionally calm
• psychoticism: individuals lack empathy

Question 3

advantages of personality is a factor in anti-social behaviour

Answer 3

• found to have reliability by Twiari who used a short form of the EPI in hindi to test its reliability
• 78 men and 124 women in India were administered the questionnaire, which consisted of the 48 items that assessed neuroticism, psychoticsm, extraversion etc.
• reliability could be tested because the questions used were the same but asked in a different form, so they could be checked for consistent answers
• they found that the items did measure neuroticism and extraversion so did show reliability
• however it was not good when identifying psychoticism
• Twiari concluded the scale had internal consistency

Question 4

disadvantages of personality is a factor in anti-social behaviour

Answer 4

• Jang looks at the difficulty in eysencks model whereby impulsivity was originally in the extraversion dimension but was moved to psychoticsm where he felt it fitted better
• this was not really explained and if traits can be moved between dimensions this seems random and does not support the model
• gray 1981 also felt that impulsivity should not have been moved as anxiety and impulsivity are important parts of the personality
• clearly the traits that fit into the main factors are open for discussion, which suggests the model might be more about labelling than ‘facts’

Question 5

applications of personality is a factor in anti-social behaviour

Answer 5

• the personality theory was used to develop the EPI which can be used for practical purposes due to its validity
• eysencks theory can help to explain crime and anti-social behaviour
• Bartram looked at the EPI to see how useful it is in selecting people to become pilots
• he found that people applying for pilot training tended to be emotionally stable and more extraverted than the general population
• the EPI helped to pick out personality factors that matched other selection criteria when it came to selecting applicants