PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS: EYSENCK AO1 & AO3 Flashcards
1
Q
(psychological exp)
A
- Personality traits have biological origin and come about through nervous systems we inherit.
- Therefore, a criminal personality is assumed to be innate.
2
Q
Eysenck’s Theory (Psychological Explanation)
A
- Behaviour is represented along two dimensions: introversion/extraversion (E) and neuroticism/stability (N) later adding third dimension psychoticism (P).
3
Q
Psychoticism (added later)
A
- highly aggressive, antisocial, egocentric.
- High levels of testosterone released from endocrine system and high levels of cortisol from CNS leading to aggressive behaviour.
4
Q
Extroversion (opposite=introversion)
A
- sociable, lively, attention-seeking.
- Underactive nervous system so arousal occurs slower therefore need more stimulation leading to risk-taking behaviours e.g. crime.
5
Q
Neuroticism (opposite=stability)
A
- anxious, depressed, reactant.
- Lower threshold for arousal so sympathetic branch activated quicker leading to individual being highly reactant to minor stressors.
6
Q
Criminal personality
A
- neurotic-extravert. Also scores highly on psychoticism.
7
Q
Role of socialisation
A
- Furthermore, socialisationhelps teach children the norms and values of society, helping them to behave appropriately.
- Yet, children with high E and N scores are difficult to control and as they cannot inhibit their antisocial impulses.
8
Q
EPI (Eysenck Personality Inventory)
A
- form of psychological test where respondents are located on a spectrum of extroversion and neuroticism.
9
Q
- One limitation of Eysenck’s theory is that it’s too simplistic.
A
- For example, the five factor model suggests other personality dimensions are important such as experience, and agreeableness.
- Eysenck suggests that personality is only based on Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Psychoticism.
- This narrows criminal personality into 3 distinct categories, rather than considering it as a whole, and thus it’s underdeveloped.
- Furthermore, it assumes that one specific personality type can account for all types of criminals, which isn’t true as there may be several distinct types of offenders
10
Q
One limitation of ET is that it contains culture bias.
A
- For example, Bartol and Holanchock studied Hispanic and African- American offenders in a prison and divided them into six groups depending on their criminal history and offence.
- They found that all groups were less extraverted than a non-criminal group.
- This shows eysenck’s research is inadequate and doesn’t account for non-american personality types.
- This is a disadvantage as we may not be able to generalise to other cultures.
- Furthermore, assuming that US criminals are the same as all criminals is an example of imposing etic.
11
Q
One limitation of ET is that it’s not accurate.
A
- For example, Eysenck theory assumes that our personality
is consistent and can be scored but our personality can change depending on the situation we are in. - This means ET forgets to account for personality changing due to the environment which can have a massive impact on our personality.
- This is a disadvantage as assuming a person is always going to have a fixed personality is simply not accurate, which decreases the credibility of the theory
12
Q
One limitation of Eysenck’s theory (ET) is that there is opposing research.
A
- For example, there is little consistent evidence that extraverts have differences in their cortical arousal (activity in the brain) compared to introverts.
- This completely goes against Eysenck’s theory, as he says criminality is because of differences in the nervous systems.
- This is a disadvantage as it questions the validity of the theory.
- Furthermore, evidence suggests that offenders score highly on psychoticism scores but not onextraversion and neuroticism scores.
- Therefore, further casting doubt on the psychological basis of ET.
