Eysenck’s Criminal Personality Theories

• Nature side of the debate – ignores nurture. We are criminals because of our personalities and because of our genes. 
• Deterministic – our biology governs whether we are criminals are not, we have no control over our criminal behaviour.
• Eysenck saw criminal behaviour as being more fixed – the urge to behave impulsively is something that we are born with.
• Eysenck identified three personality traits that each of us is born with Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism. The varying degree of each trait depends on genetic inheritance (genes from our parents). He devised a questionnaire to score these personality traits.
• Extraversion


  score high = outgoing, sociable and confident. The opposite end there is introversion = quiet, shy and unassertive.
• Neuroticism


  score high = anxious, angry and prone to feeling guilt. The opposite end is stability = calm, even-tempered, and not easily stressed.
• Psychoticism 


  score high = impulsive, aggressive, and selfish. The opposite end is high impulse control – warm, considerate and conscientious.
• An individual with a criminal personality will score highly on each of his three scales for extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism. A neurotic extrovert is more likely to be a criminal than a stable extrovert
• Criminals are extrovert as these individuals need a lot of stimulation from the environment (often thrill seekers) – they find a thrill and an excitement in criminal behaviour.
• Criminals are neurotic – they can get stuck in patterns of behaviour to relive their high anxiety levels which can include criminal behaviour. Their high anxiety can also get in the way of attempts to punish criminal or anti-social behaviour as a result they don’t easily learn from previous mistakes (likely to re-offend)
• Eysenck argued that there is a biological element to criminal behaviour by linking criminal personality traits to the central nervous system (CNS). Criminal behaviour can be linked to under-arousal in the CNS.
• The reticular activation system (RAS) is the part of the brain stem that links the brain and spinal cord and regulates the stimuli sent to the cerebral cortex.
• In extroverts the cerebral cortex is under-aroused because the stimuli is restricted by RAS. The cerebral cortex is ‘hungry’ for stimulation, which can be gained thorough risky, lawless behaviour. Extroverts have a stronger dopamine reward system – they respond more positively to reinforce like sex and money (to the extent that they need to acquire them illegally.)  
• Neuroticism related to the activity of the autonomic nervous system (ANS – activated during emotion-inducing situations and regulates the activity of the brain’s limbic system). ANS becomes over aroused in neurotics, leading to higher levels of violence (a behaviour under the control of the limbic system)
• Psychoticism result of excess dopaminergic neurons which cause over-production of dopamine by the nervous system. Less inhibition of impulses in the brain during synaptic transmission.
• High levels of extraversion and neuroticism, according to Eysenck, make people difficult to condition.
• Individuals who are naturally stable and introverted learn the association between criminal behaviour and its negative outcomes more easily and so avoid committing crimes in the future.
• We are born with our personality traits, and those who score highly on extroversion and neuroticism may be more resistant to early socialisation (learning moral behaviour).
• Parents will have to work harder to divert their child away from the thrill of crime.
• People end up in jobs that are related to their personality types.