Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality Flashcards
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
3 dimentions of Personality Eysenck
2 dimentions of personality:
Neuroticism
• Reflects bio predisposition to respond physiologicaly to stressfull situations / events
• to respond emotionaly
Extroversion
• refering to the amount of stimulation the person needs from their enviroment. Extroverts take risks, act on the moment and are impulsive
most have a balence of these to and therefore don’t commit crime
Eysenck added a 3rd Dimention cuz he felt like it
Psychoticism
• th absence of the above traits and high trait levels of aggression, coldness, impulsivity.
• low lvls of psychoticism are empathetic, warm, unselfish, peacefull and pleasnt
• Eysenck found that on avg men score higher in psychoticism than women (Hollin 1992)
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
Testing perosnality
to measure the 3 dimentions Eysenck devised a Psychometric test ( Personality questionaire EPQ) to see whrre each dimention fitted on a scale
• extraversion (E) and Meuroticism (N) can be measured using questionaires
Eysenck beleived those with high N scores = dificult to learn socialy appropriate behaviours
• he suggests that high E and N scores are linked to criminal behaviour
P scores didnt develop till alter on
• most people have a balence of E and N and low P so they dont commit crimes
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
how work? (conditioned)
• Eysenck theory is based on Bio (physiological) and enviromental (+social) factors to explain criminality
• sugest that Childhood socialisation ( how parents teach child abt social norms and right and wrong and how to act ect.)
• they think that socialisation is based on associations and conditioning between social behaviours and Punishment :
- child is Socialised (conditioned)
- child learns sence of right and wrong
- child avoids behaviour leading to punishment
- child controls own impulses ( developed a conscience preventing them from acting antisocial)
• genes and nervous system determines how well you can develop a conscience
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
nervous systems
The cortical nervous system (CNS) : responsible for voluntary conscious motor and sensory functions
Reticular activating system (RAS) is in the (CNS)
• responds to stimulus with either excitement or no excitement
• balences excitment and not excitment (inhibition) to maintain optimum lvl of arousal
The autonomic nervous system (ANS): automatic functioning not under conscious control e.g.: Flight and fight
the ANS split in 2 (its also controlled by the limbic system (mainly hypothalamous))
Sympathetic (SNS) : quickly increases fight/flight in High N personalitys
Parasympathetic (PNS): is slow to decrease fight/flight in high N personalitys
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
N E P CHARACTERISTICS
• introvert: reserved and distnat except to friends, quiet, unsocialble, calm
• Extrovert: sociable, outgoing, risk taking common impulsive, quick to anger, act on the moment crave excitement, take chances
• High N score: anxious, jumpy, worrying, moody, find it difficult to cope with stress, depressed, sleep deprived, over emotional, overreact to stress
• low score N: respond emotionally slow, emotionally weak, returned to calm quickly, calm, even temple, controlled, unworried
( so high E and N = impulsive on emotions, quick to anger, over react, react strongly ( basicaly all the things needed for violent crim outburst)
High P score: cold, uncaring, solitary, aggressive, violent, hostile, lack of empathy
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
AO1 ON WHY HIGH P, N, E LEADS TO CRMINIMAL BEHAVIOUR
+ nurture reason why link to crime
★ (what to put for AO1)
(litteraly 4 point too perfect)
(mabe add context and explain what the points mean tho)
why high E score do crime?
high E score due to CNS and RAS:
• someone who is highly extroverted will have an underaroused RAS
• meaning that many stimuluses will not cause excitement so they will go looking for stimuli to arouse the RAS to excite them this could be doing crime and fights, meeting to criminal behaviour
High P score due to Hormones:
•this has been linked to testosterone
• therefore high testosterone and low enzymes to break down the testosterone creates a high p score
• and high testosterone has been linked to aggression and agrgression may lead to assault which is a violent crime
High N score due to SNS and PNS in the ANS:
• SNS quickly increases fight and flight response
• PNS slowly decreases flight and fight response
• this is due to the SNS overreacting to stimuli and activating f/f even if it is not necessary
• releasing adrenaline increasing heart rate and blood flow to the muscles to prepare the body for attacking which could lead to assault and crime
nurture
• they do not learn from their past experiences and socialisation of what is right and wrong to do and social norms of what not to do
• they may not connect the action they did to be consequence they were given and therefore not learn from it
• no self-control of impulses and social behavior was retained during conditioning and socialisation
• so we don’t learn from their past experiences don’t deal well with consequences of their actions and cannot control anti social impulses therefore they more likely to commit crimes
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
evidence +
Farrington et al 1982
HIGH PEN CRIM
Farrington et al 1982
• a number of studys used to find offenders tend to score higher than controlls on All 3 scores PEN
• therefore it’s supports PEN personality theory as a criminal personality and therefore supports as a cause of criminal behavior
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
evidence - Zuckerman et al 1988
(marvin zuckerman)
E ≠ seek excite
Zuckerman et al 1988 is evidence opposing PEN personality theory
• he gave his ( Marvin Zuckerman) university students 8 the personality tests which they did at a rate of once per week
• the sample consisted of two classes and the only data that was counted were pupils who had completed all 8 tests (71m 198f)
• he found no evidence to suggest that sensational seeking was related to extraversion
• therefore the theories suggestions on why high extrovert scores criminal behavior was not found to be accurate
• therefore invalidating the theories explanation of why high extrovert scores caused criminal behaviour, meaning that Zuckerman 1988 is evidence opposing PEN personality Theory as a cause of criminal behaviour
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
How good is the research -
Farrington et al 1982
correlations
• Farrington et al 1982 is poor evidence support PEN personality Theory as a cause of criminal behavior
• due to the Research being correlational and therefore can only find that there is a relationship between high PEN scores and offenders
• however it cannot prove that high PEN scores cause people to offend as there is no way for cause and effect to be established between high PEN scores and criminal behavior due to research being correlational (relationships not = link not cause)
• therefore it is poor research to support PEN personality Theory being caused of criminal behavior
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
HOW GOOD RESEARCH +
standardised procedure
Zuckerman et al 1988
standardised procedure
Zukerman et al 1988 is good evidence to oppose PEN personality Theory causing criminal behaviour because it has a standardised procedure
• the 271 students were given a personality test at a rate of once per week for eight weeks
• they were given profile sheets to record the results and was posted anomalously under self-selected code names to ensure privacy
Therefore due to having a standardised procedure this study has high test-retest reliability as it is easy for other psychologists to replicate this experiment
• therefore making Zukerman et al 1988 good research to oppose PEN personality Theory as an cause for criminal behaviour
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
Compared to SLT +/-
Bandura 61 farrington 82
+ reductionist - internal validity cause and effect
Social learning theories worse than PEN personality Theory as a explanation of criminal behaviour as PEN personality Theory considers both nature and nurture in terms of Personality whereas SLT only considers nurture in its explenation
• therefore social learning theory is more reductionist as it does not consider nature Factors in its explanation of criminal behaviour, meaning it’s more spimplistic and therefore could not explain nature factors influencing criminal behaviors such as genetics
• so PEN personality is a better explenation of criminal behaviour than SLT interms of reductionism
》《》《《》《《》《《》《》》
• Social Theory is better than PEN personality Theory as social learning theory has lab studies such as bandura 1961
Comparing this to Farrington et al 1982 which is a correlational study
• lab studies can find cause and effect unlike correlations which cannot do this and only can find a relationship between two variables not that one variable causes the other variable to occur
• Therefore due to lab study such as bandora 1961 being able to establish cause and effects while study such as Farrington 1982 are correlational and cannot do this,
• lab studies Therefore have high internal validity, meaning better research to support their Theory
• meaning that social learning theory is the better explanation of criminal behavior due to having better research to support it
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
Conclusion and application
In conclusion PEN personality Theory is a good personality Theory on the cause of aggression as it considers both nature and nurture in its explanation however the research used to support it is all correlational and therefore cannot establish causing effects meaning the results of said studies may not be valid
Therefore while a good Theory in Concepts better research must be done to determine if the theory is accurate or not
app
An application of PEN personality Theory is that to decrease somebody’s PEN score in neuroticism and therefore decrease the chance of displaying criminal behavior
A person could go to therapy to increase their emotional stability and therefore decreasing their neuroticism score and therefore the PEN personality decreasing their chance of displaying criminal behaviour
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
Psychoticism
Eysenck added a 3rd Dimention cuz he felt like it
Psychoticism
• the absence of N and E traits and high trait levels of aggression, coldness, impulsivity.
• low lvls of psychoticism are empathetic, warm, unselfish, peacefull and pleasnt
• Eysenck found that on avg men score higher in psychoticism than women (Hollin 1992)
• High P score characteristics:
cold, uncaring, solitary, aggressive, violent, hostile, lack of empathy
Y COMMIT CRIME?
High P score due to Hormones:
•this has been linked to testosterone
• therefore high testosterone and low enzymes to break down the testosterone creates a high p score
• and high testosterone has been linked to aggression and agrgression may lead to assault which is a violent crime
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
Extrovertism
one of Eysencks first 2 dimentions is
Extroversion
• refering to the amount of stimulation the person needs from their enviroment. Extroverts take risks, act on the moment and are impulsive
• Need a High E score aswell as High N and P scores to have a PEN personailty and therefore do criminal behaviours, everyone normaly has a balence of N and E so not criminal
characteristics of the 2 sides of the scale:
• introvert: reserved and distnat except to friends, quiet, unsocialble, calm
• Extrovert: sociable, outgoing, risk taking common impulsive, quick to anger, act on the moment crave excitement, take chances
why high E score do crime?
high E score due to CNS and RAS:
The cortical nervous system (CNS) : responsible for voluntary conscious motor and sensory functions
Reticular activating system (RAS) is in the (CNS)
• responds to stimulus with either excitement or no excitement
• balences excitment and not excitment (inhibition) to maintain optimum lvl of arousal
Therefore applying it to High E scores:
• someone who is highly extroverted will have an underaroused RAS
• meaning that many stimuluses will not cause excitement so they will go looking for stimuli to arouse the RAS to excite them this could be doing crime and fights, meeting to criminal behaviour
Personality: Eysenck 1977 PEN personality
Neuroticism
One of the 2 ogiginal dimentions
Neuroticism
• Reflects bio predisposition to respond physiologicaly to stressfull situations / events
• to respond emotionaly
High N score amd High E score And High P score = PEN personality = criminal behaviour
Characteristics of N:
• High N score: anxious, jumpy, worrying, moody, find it difficult to cope with stress, depressed, sleep deprived, over emotional, overreact to stress
• low score N: respond emotionally slow, emotionally weak, returned to calm quickly, calm, even temple, controlled, unworried
Why high N cause criminal behaviour?
The autonomic nervous system (ANS): automatic functioning not under conscious control e.g.: Flight and fight
the ANS split in 2 (its also controlled by the limbic system (mainly hypothalamous))
Sympathetic (SNS) : quickly increases fight/flight in High N personalitys
Parasympathetic (PNS): is slow to decrease fight/flight in high N personalitys
Link to N scores
High N score due to SNS and PNS in the ANS:
• SNS quickly increases fight and flight response
• PNS slowly decreases flight and fight response
• this is due to the SNS overreacting to stimuli and activating f/f even if it is not necessary
• releasing adrenaline increasing heart rate and blood flow to the muscles to prepare the body for attacking which could lead to assault and crime
