Eysenck's criminal personality

• What is Eysenck's theory of the criminal personality?

  • In 1947 Eysenck proposed that behaviour could be represented along three dimensions: introversion-extraversion (E), neuroticism-stability (N), and psychoticism-sociability (P)
  • The criminal personality type is neurotic-extravert-psychotic - neurotics are unstable and prone to overreact to threatening situations, extraverts seek more arousal and engage in dangerous activities, and psychotics are aggressive and lack empathy
• What is Eysenck's biological basis for the criminal personality?

  • Believed our personality traits are biological in origin and come about through the type of nervous system we inherit
  • Extraverts have an under-active nervous system and so constantly seek excitement and stimulation, making them likely to engage in risky behaviours. Also don't learn from their mistakes
  • Neurotics have a high reactivity level in their sympathetic NS, meaning they respond quickly to threatening situations and are nervous, jumpy and overanxious, so their behaviour is often difficult to predict
  • Psychotics have high testosterone levels, leading to aggressive behaviour and being antisocial
• What is Eysenck's environmental basis for the criminal personality?


  • Eysenck saw criminal behaviour as developmentally immature due to being selfish and concerned with immediate gratification - offenders are impatient and cannot wait for things
  • Socialisation - children are typically conditioned to become more able to delay gratification and learn self-control, but E & N children have nervous systems that make them difficult to condition
  • They are less likely to learn responses to antisocial impulses and are bored of waiting, which is why it is hard to teach them delayed gratification and making them more likely to behave antisocially when they are given the opportunity
• What is one strength of Eysenck's theory?

  • Research support: Eysenck and Eysenck (1977) compared 2070 prisoners' scores to 2422 controls using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
  • Prisoners scored higher average scores across all ages on E, N and P than controls, agreeing with Eysenck's predictons and identified dimensions
• What is one limitation of Eysenck's theory?

  • Contrasting evidence: Farrington et al. (1982) conducted a meta-analysis of relevant studies and reported that offenders tended to score high on measures of psychoticism but NOT for extraversion and neuroticism
  • Kussner (2017): found inconsistent evidence of differences on EEG measures between extraverts and introverts, casting doubt on the biological basis of Eysenck's theory
  • Means some central assumptions of the criminal personality have been challenged
• What is another limitation of Eysenck's theory?

  • Too simplistic: Moffitt (1993) pointed out the difference between adolescence-limited behaviour and life-course persistent behaviour e.g. what we do in our adolescence and whether or not it continues into adulthood
  • Personality traits alone were a poor predictor of whether someone is likely to become a 'career offender' - that persistence in offending behaviour is often determined by an interaction between personality and the environment
  • Suggests offending behaviour is more complex than personality traits alone
• What is another limitation of Eysenck's theory?

  • Cultural differences: Bartol and Holanchok (1979) studies Hispanic and African-American offenders in a New York prison, dividing them into 6 groups based on offending history and nature of their offences
  • Found all 6 groups were less extraverted than a control group, even though Eysenck predicted them to be more extraverted, suggested to be because they are a different cultural group
  • Questions how far the criminal personality can be generalised, assuming it is now a culturally relative concept