Eysenck's criminal personality

• Eysenck's personality theory of offending suggests that personality traits include dimensions of extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism.
• Eysenck argues that differences in personalities between criminals and non-criminals has a biological basis, looking at stimulation of the individual's central nervous system.
• people with high extraversion scores are social, active and sensation seeking, so they seek more stimulation from their environment.
• extraversion


  this thrill-seeking aspects of extraverts could lead to crime associated with risk-taking - theft, vandalism or even substance abuse.

  extraversion is determined by the overall level of arousal in the person's Autonomic Nervous System and CNS.
• people with high neuroticism scores are anxious, depressed and react very strongly to aversive stimuli.

  a stable (low neuroticism score) person's nervous system will generally be less reactive to stressful situations, remaining calm and level-headed.
• neuroticism


  someone high in neuroticism tends to be unstable, prone to over-reacting in threatening situations and may be quick to anger or fear.

  this could lead to anger or fear-related crime such as violence or harassment.
• people with high psychoticism scores are aggressive, antisocial, apathetic and egocentric.
• psychoticism


  the higher the testosterone in an individual, the higher the level of psychoticism, with low levels related to more normal, balanced behaviour.

  those with high levels of psychoticism are more prone to commit crimes of violence or abuse
• operant conditioning


  Eysenck also believes that since we learn through operant conditioning, our ability to learn through conditioning and be socialised is influenced by the three dimensions of personality.

  when a person does something wrong, they are punished (operant conditioning), resulting in future avoidance of that behaviour.
• operant conditioning


  however, Eysenck claimed that extraverts condition much more slowly, as they are more likely to act on impulse, and therefore they do not learn to avoid antisocial behaviour.

  this lack of conditioning results in poor socialisation and increases the likelihood of criminal behaviour