Eysencks Theory

• •Eysenck’s proposed that offending behaviour is caused by having a criminal personality (psychological). However, he argued that the criminal personality type is biological in origin (i.e. has an innate, biological basis) and comes about through the type of nervous system we inherit.
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• •Eysenck proposed that personality could be represented along two dimensions: introversion/extraversion and neuroticism/stability. He later added a third: psychoticism/normality.•These dimensions combine to form a variety of personality characteristics or traits.
• •Eysenck suggested that the criminal personality type is the neurotic-extravert i.e. they score highly on measures of neuroticism (unstable and overly anxious and nervous) and extraversion (sensation-seeking and outgoing).•Additionally, offenders will score highly on measures of psychoticism – cold and unfeeling and prone to aggression.•This is measured using the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI). A later scale was introduced to measure psychoticism.•
• The Biological Basis

  •Eysenck argued that the link between the criminal personality type and offending behaviour could be explained in terms of physiological arousal.•
• The Biological Basis

  •The criminal personality type is biological in origin (i.e. has an innate, biological basis) and comes about through the type of nervous system we inherit i.e. the type of nervous system that predisposes us to offend is inherited!
• The Biological Basis

  •Extraverts have a chronically under-aroused nervous system, meaning they constantly seek excitement, stimulation and are likely to engage in risk-taking and dangerous behaviours, which may explain some offending behaviour.
• The Biological Basis

  •Neurotic individuals have more reactive sympathetic nervous systems (i.e. greater responses to threat). They are unstable and so react easily and get upset quickly. They may therefore overreact to situations of threat, explaining some offending behaviour.
• The Biological Basis

  •Psychotics can easily be linked to offending behaviour as they are aggressive and lack empathy.
• The Role Of Socialisation

  •The process of socialisation is one in which children are taught to become more able to delay gratification and become more socially oriented through conditioning – they are punished for anti-social behaviours and so even thinking about them creates anxiety.•Eysenck viewed offending behaviour as developmentally immature, in that it is selfish and concerned with immediate gratification.
• The Role Of Socialisation

  •He suggested that people with high extraversion and neuroticism had nervous systems that made them difficult to condition.•Therefore, they do not easily learn to respond to antisocial impulses with anxiety. Consequently, they would be more likely to act in antisocial, and potentially criminal, ways.
• Eval- Strength

  •Eysenck and Eysenck (1977) compared 2070 male prisoners’ scores on the EPI with 2422 male controls. On measures of psychoticism, extraversion and neuroticism (across age groups), prisoners recorded higher scores than controls.•This supports the predictions of the theory that criminals have higher scores on measures of the criminal personality, suggesting that the theory has some validity.
• Eval- Weakness

  •Farrington et al. (1982) reviewed several studies and found that offenders tended to score high on psychoticism measures, but not for extraversion or neuroticism. They also found little evidence of consistent evidence in EEG measures (used to measure cortical arousal) between extraverts and introverts.•This casts doubt on the physiological basis of Eysenck’s theory and also implies that extraversion and neuroticism may not be typical characteristics of many criminals and therefore the theory may not be externally valid.
• Eval -Weakenss


  •The idea that all offending behaviour can be explained by a single personality type has been heavily criticised. For example, Digman’s (1990) Five Factor Model of personality suggests that alongside extraversion and neuroticism, there are additional dimensions of openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
• Eval- Weakness

  •Bartol and Holanchock (1979) studied Hispanic and African-American offenders in a maximum security prison in New York and divided these into six groups based on their criminal history and the nature of their offences. It was found that all six groups were less extravert than a non-criminal control group.
• Eval - Weakness

  •The theory assumes that personality is consistent (i.e. the person is the same all of the time). However, a number of psychologists support a situational perspective, suggesting that people may be consistent in similar situations (e.g. calm at home) but not across situations (e.g. calm at home but neurotic at work). Supporting this, Mischel and Peake (1982) asked family, friends and strangers to rate 63 students in a variety of situations and found almost no correlation between traits displayed.
• Eval- Weakness

  •The score or label given to any person depends on the answers they provide on a personality questionnaire such as the EPI. The traits may apply to them, but their answers may not reflect reality. For example, when asked ‘are you lively?’, most people may answer ‘sometimes’ but have to choose between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and so may choose the most socially desirable answer and so their answers are not entirely truthful.
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  Psychological – criminal personality type
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  Biological – type of nervous system we inherit
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  Offending Behaviour
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  Social – responses to socialisation (reward and punishment)
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  Offending Behaviour