2.2 Eysenck & Cognitive

• Eysenck & Criminal Personality?

  eysenck believed that people can have a criminal personality - a personality type that increases the likelihood of taking part in criminal behaviours.

  They were characterised by:

  1. high extraversion score - making them bored and risk taking, which is caused by a nervous system functioning as they have a nervous system that requires a lot of stimulation from the environment.
  2. high neuroticism score - making them unstable and difficult to predict
  3. high psychoticism as a 3rd personality trait - aggressive, cold and lack empathy
• Why is is good?


  Evidence to support the theory.

  Eysenck & Eysenck (1977) compared 2070 male prisoners with scores on the EPI with 2422 male controls. Prisoners scored higher than controls on E, N and P.
• Why is it a bad theory?


  Farrington conducted a meta - analysis (looking at studies of criminal personality) and found evidence was consistent in terms of neuroticism, p and. However as evidence was inconsistent in terms of extraversion this suggests the theory is not valid.

  Measuring personality requires a questionnaire. People do not always answer questionnaires honestly which may mean it is hard to accurately measure a criminal personality.