AO3

• Who found evidence to support the criminal personality?

  Eysenck and Eysenck
• What did Eysenck and Eysenck do and find?

  Compared EPQ scores of prisoners with controls. Prisoners had a higher average score on measures of extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism than controls.
• Who conducted a meta analysis which showed offenders tended to score high on measures of psychotic but not for extraversion and neuroticism?

  Farrington et al.
• How does EEG relate to Eysenck’s theory of personality?

  Eysenck suggested that extraverts have lower cortical arousal than introverts, leading them to seek stimulation. EEG is used to measure this arousal
• Who found inconsistent evidence of EEG differences between extraverts and introverts, casting doubt on the physiological basis of Eysenck’s theory?

  Kossner
• Why does Kossner’s findings about EEG challenge Eysenck’s theory?

  If EEG differences are inconsistent and extraversion is not linked to offending, it weakens the argument that personality traits have a strong biological basis in criminal behaviour
• Why might Eysenck’s theory be considered too simplistic?

  Reductionism: It assumes that all offending behaviour can be explained by personality traits alone, without considering environmental influences
• What factors does Eysenck’s theory not take into account?

  Cultural
• Who studied Hispanic and African-American offenders in a maximum security prison in New York?

  Bartol et al.
• What did Bartol et al. find after dividing the offenders into 6 groups based on their offending history and the nature of offences?

  All 6 groups were less extravert than a non-offender control group whereas Eysenck would expect them to be more extravert. Bartol suggested that this was because the sample was a very different cultural group from that investigated by Eysenck
• Who found a moderate correlation for extroversion, neuroticism and psychoticism in monozygotic twins and weaker correlation in dizygotic twins?

  Zuckerman (shows personality has a genetic bassi)
• According to Moffit, where does antisocial behaviour from life course persistent offenders stem from?

  Biological differences that underline the criminal personality
• According to Moffit, where does antisocial/offending behaviour from adolescent limited offenders stem from?

  Interaction between immaturity and learning from antisocial models
• Who suggested that not all criminals have a biological predisposition to offending behaviour?

  Moffit
• What are the two distinct groups offenders suggested by Moffat?

  1. Life course persistent offenders
  2. Adolescent limited offenders