AO3

• What was the research support of Eysenck's theory?

  • Sybil Eysenck and Hans Eysenck (1997): 2070 prisoners' scores on the EPQ with 2422 controls.
  • On measures of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism across all ages that were sampled.
  • Prisoners recorded higher scores than control
  • Agrees with the prediction of his theory that offenders rate higher on the scale than non-offenders
• What was the counterpoint to Eysenck and Eyesnck's research?

  • David Farrington et al. ( 1982) - conducted a meta-analysis of relevant studies
  • Reported offenders often scored high on Psychoticism but not for extraversion and neuroticism.
  • Inconsistent evidence of differences on EEG measures (used to measure cortical arousal) between extraverts and introverts (Kussner 2017)
  • This casts doubts on the physiological basis of Eysenck's theory
  • Central assumptions = challenged
• What did Moffitt criticise about Eysenck's theory

  • Moffitt believed his theory to be too simplistic
  • She made a distinction between offending behavior that only occurs in adolescence (adolescence-limited) and that which continues into adulthood (life-course-persistent)
  • Moffitt argued personality alone was a poor predictor for the duration of offending behaviour
  • The persistence of offending behaviour was linked to reciprocal processes between personality and the environment.
  • Offers a more complex view of the personality theory
• How are cultural factors a limitation of Eysenck's theory?

  • Bartol and Holanchock (1979) - studied Hispanic and AA offenders in a maximum security prison in New York
  • Divided into six groups based off of offending history and nature of offence
  • All six groups were less extraverted than the non-offender control group
  • B and H suggested it was because the sample was a much different cultural group from the on Eysenck studied .
  • Ambiguous to how far the criminal personality can be generalised and suggested it may be a culturally relative concept