Aversion therapy/Eysenck's theory

• As Eysenck believes that criminals are extroverted, highly neurotic and that they are harder to condition because they resist learning through punishment, aversion therapy would be suggested to reduce criminal activity.
• An example of the use of aversion therapy when it aims to stop offenders' thoughts and deviant behaviour.

  • When offenders think about unacceptable sexual fantasies, they are administered with a strongly aversive stimulus such as an electric shock.
  • This process is repeated until the offender begins to associate the deviant arousal with the stimulus.
• Aversion therapy evaluation:

  limitation: the therapy has limited success and the success is usually only temporary

  limitation: past uses of aversion therapy to 'cure' gay people has been criticised as an abuse of human rights.