Psychological Explanations - eysencks personality trait Flashcards
4 psychological explanations
Eysenck personality theory
Cognitive theory
Differential association
Psychodynamic
Eysenck developed…
A theory of personality based on the idea that character traits tend to cluster along 3 dimensions
What are the 3 cluster dimensions
Extraversion/ introversion
Psychoticism/ stability
Neuroticism/ stability
Extrovert def
Sociable and outgoing
Introvert features
Thoughtful, peaceful and passive
Why was psychoticism and stability added later
Added dimensions following work with schizophrenia
Psychoticism features
Aggressive and impulsive
Neuroticism features
Restless, aggressive and moody
Stability feature
Calm, even-tempered
Extraversion, neruroticism and psychoticism all have a biological basis which are…
Innate
Extraversion is biological bc
Determined by arousal in nervous system
Neuroticism is biological bc
Determined by level of stability in the sympathetic nervous system, how much a person responds in a fight or flight response
Psychoticism biological because
Related to higher levels of testosterone
How do extroverts link to criminal behaviour
Seek more arousal so are more likely to engage in dangerous activities
Neurotics link to criminal behaviour
Are unstable and therefore prone to over react in some situations
Psychoticism link to criminal behaviour
Individuals are aggressive and lack empathy, easily linked to crime
3 evaluation points of Eysencks personality theory
Weakness - opposing research
Weakness - supportive research isn’t generalisable
Strength - takes into account nature and nurture
Elaboration of weakness - opposing research
- opposing research by Barton and Holanchock who found all groups were less extroverted than a non-criminal group
- eysencks theory suggests criminals should have higher not lower extraversion
- reliability questioned lacking consistency across criminal populations
Elaboration weakness - supportive research
- supportive research doesn’t look at criminals who aren’t caught
- researchers can only compare convicted criminals to Bernal population
- decreases validity making theory less generalisable to non-institutionalised criminals
Elaboration strength - takes into account nature/ nurture
- biological predispositions and personality traits combined with conditioning creates our personality
- this approach more valid than biological or environmental theory alone
