Eysenck

• The criminal personality

  A feature of Eysenck's theory of crime where someone who scores highly on extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism cannot be easily conditioned, are cold and are likely to engage in offending behaviour
• Personality Theory

  • Eysenck proposed that behaviour could be represented along two dimensions: introversion-extraversion and neuroticism-stability
  • Eysenck then later added a third dimension: psychoticism-sociability
• Biological Basis of Criminality

  • Eysenck believed that personality traits are biological in origin and stem from the nervous system
  • There are 3 main personality types:
  • Extraversion
  • Neuroticism
  • Psychoticism
• Extraversion

  • Underactive nervous system so they constantly seek excitement, stimulation and are likely to engage in risk taking behaviour
  • Tend not to condition easily and do not learn from mistakes
  • Seek more arousal and engage in dangerous activities
• Neuroticism

  • High level of reactivity in the sympathetic nervous system
  • Respond to situations of threat really well
  • Tend to be nervous, overanxious and jumpy
  • General instability means their behaviour is unpredictable
• Psychoticism

  • Higher levels of aggression
  • Unemotional and lack empathy
  • Lack a conscience and self control
• The role of socialisation

  • Eysenck saw offending behaviour as developmentally immature as it is selfish and concerned with instant gratification
  • Process of socialisation is that children are taught to delay gratification
  • Eysenck believed that people with high N and E scores had nervous systems that made them difficult to condition so display more anti social behaviour
• Measuring criminal personality

  • The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was developed
  • One dimension is a scale for extraversion and introversion
  • Another dimension is neuroticism and stability
  • The third dimension is psychoticism and sociability
• Eysenck's Theory: Research Support

  • 2070 male prisoners scores on the EPQ were compared with 2422 male controls
  • One measures of extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism across all age groups that were sampled, prisoners had higher average scores
• Eysenck's Theory: Insufficient evidence

  • Meta analysis of relevant studies reported that offenders tended to score high on psychoticism but not for extraversion or neuroticism
  • There is also inconsistent evidence of differences on EEG measures between extraverts and introverts
  • This casts doubt on Eysenck's theory that states extraverts have a lack of arousal and turn to risk taking behaviour
• Eysenck's Theory: Cultural factors

  • The criminal personality may vary according to culture
  • Hispanic and African American male offenders were studied
  • Used personality tests and compared with non criminal control group
  • The offenders were less extravert than the control group
  • The offenders were less outgoing which goes against Eysenck that may not have considered different cultures displaying different behaviours
  • Questions how far it can be generalised
• Eysenck Theory: Biologically deterministic

  • Suggests your personality traits can lead you to being more inclined to criminal behaviour
  • This can lead to issues in the criminal justice system
  • Some people may not take responsibility for their actions and blame their biology
  • In the criminal justice system everyone has free will
• Eysenck's Theory: Too simplistic

  • A limitation is that all offending behaviour is being limited to personality traits
  • There is a difference between offending behaviour that occurs in adolescence and behaviour that carries on into adulthood
  • Personality traits alone are a poor indicator for how long criminal behaviour goes on for
  • Offending behaviour is more complex