psychological

• Eysneck theory of personality 

  -character traits cluster along three dimensions which high levels form a criminal personality
• character trait 1:

  Extroversion - characterised as outgoing, having positive emotions, bored easily 

  seek more stimulation so likely to engage in more dangerous activities

  Biological basis: nervous system is under aroused, requires more stimulation 
• Neuroticism -tendency to experience negative emotional states 

  unstable, overreact easily in situations of threat 

  Biological basis:determined by level of stability in the sns, how much they respond to threats
• Psychoticism-egocentric, aggressive, impulsive and lacking in empathy for other people

  Biological basis higher levels of testosterone -more likely to affect men.
• what does eyesneck suggest about the environment?

  He suggests there is a combination of innate personality and environment- people high in extroversion and neuroticism are less easily conditioned so don't learn to avoid anti social behaviour.
• eyesneck's study


  Him and his wife sybil assessed 2070 male prisoners to a control group of 2422 males on measures of extroversion, neuroticism, psychoticism

  Prisoners recorded higher scores than control group, criminal personality type- those with higher scores are more likely to be criminals
• Consisetnt in similar situations but not across situations for example some people may be calm at home by neurotic at work. Walter mischel’s situational theory has been supported with research, mischel and peake asked family and friends and strangers to rate 63 students in a variety of situations and found almost no correlation between traits displayed, any regularity is likely to be due to the fact we tend to often be in similar situations.
• There is research support for eysnecks explanation of offending behaviour. He found criminasl scored highly on e n and p measures than a control group of non crimimals, supporting his theory.

  However Farrington et al reviewed studies and found criminals scored high on p but not e or n. This shows Research is mixed and only the trait of psychoticism could be linked to criminality, the others being inconsistent 
• - issues with research method used , especially questionnaire =social desirability bias, people may desire to be seen as more sociable or seen as less neurtoitic , dishonestly which would reduce the validity of the results, unable to draw cause and effect relationships between traits and criminality cant be sure those are their true characteristics. mthodolgy flawed

  • gender biased whilst men due to their testosterone levels show more aggressive criminal behaviour there are still women criminlas, not generalise
  • only those caught, have different characteristics allow them to avoid arrest
• • one strength is there is real world application, to prevent people with vunerable personality traits from becoming offenders
  • allow people to make predictions about people who are likely have tendencies offending behaviour.
  • lead them towards a good path by encouraging them to take part different opportunities like extreme sports to act as a proscocial outlet for their potentially dangerous behaviours
  • a further strategy is controlling the social environments they are in .Therefore reducing levels of those who display offending behaviour.