Eysenck’s and Bandura

Cards (35)

  • a criminal personality is a set of fixed traits associated with people who commit crimes
  • Extraversion is a trait measuring how outgoing and sociable someone is
  • Neuroticism is how anxious and emotionally unstable someone is
  • Introversion is how less outgoing and reserved someone is
  • Psychoticism is how impulsive and aggressive someone is
  • The definition of impulsive is the act of doing things without thinking
  • Crimes linked to extroversion are drug crimes, acqusitive, sexual crimes
  • Eysenck believed that people with high neuroticism would be more likely to commit violent crimes as they have low self control
  • Bandura believes that we can change our behaviour through observational learning
  • Crimes linked to neuroticism are antisocial crimes and drug related crimes
  • Crimes related to psychoticism are violent crimes like murder
  • Eysenck’s aim was to measure the 3 personality traits and prove that they originate from the nervous system
  • The cerebral cortex is under stimulated in extroverts and the stimuli is blocked by the reticular activating system
  • Introverts have an overactive RAS which means their brain is constantly active so they need less sleep than extroverts
  • Neurotics have a weakened RAS which makes them sensitive to stressors, this leads to anxiety disorders such as panic attacks
  • Psychotics have a strong RAS which means they don’t feel pain or fear, this could lead to criminal activity because they won’t care about consequences
  • Dopamine reward system: dopamine lowers inhibition and the reward system is stronger in extroverts which leads to their criminal behaviour
  • Serotonin punishment system: serotonin increases inhibitions and the punishment system is weaker in psychopaths which leads to their lack of guilt/remorse
  • A synapse is a gap between neurons
  • Inhibition is holding back impulses
  • One limitation of Eysenck’s theory is that it ignores individual differences because it failed to look at the uniqueness of people
  • Eysenck’s theory is also criticised for assuming traits are stable though people show different personalities in different situations
  • social learning theory suggest that we look at role models and observe their behaviour
  • Role models are people that we are likely to imitate
  • Examples of role models are teachers, parents, friends, and celebrities.
  • Imitation is copying someones actions or behaviour, with or without understanding the meaning behind it.
  • Observation is watching and recording other people’s behaviour
  • Identification is the process of recognizing yourself as a member of a group.
  • Vicarious reinforcement is when a person learns a behaviour by observing another person and then imitating them
  • Internalisation is when behaviour has become a habit and no longer needs to be reinforced
  • Direct reinforcement is when behaviour is likely to be repeated due to positive outcomes
  • Albert bandura studied aggression and experimented on children ages 3-5
  • Bandura put the children in a room with a bobo doll and left them alone. The kids then copied whatever the adults did beforehand.
  • Social learning theory has been criticised for ignoring roles of nature and nurture. psychologists argue that there’s a criminal gene and you can’t learn to be a criminal. Therefore nature or nurture have to interact before someone becomes a criminal
  • The theory also can’t explain why offenders find it difficult to leave crime. If criminal behaviour is strengthened by reinforcemen then it should reduced by punishment, though criminals reoffend. Therefore it suggests that it’s in the criminals nature and can’t be unlearnt