eysencks personality theory

• Eysenck suggested people are more inclined to crime if they have a certain personality type - neurotic-extravert. he suggested personality can be measured across two dimensions , introvert-extravert and neurotic-stable. he later added psychoticism as a third dimension

  although a psychological theory it suggests personality has a biological basis
• CRIMINAL PERSONALITY

  • extroverts are more inclined to crime as they have under-active nervous systems which need constant stimulation to increase neurotransmitters such as noradrenaline
  • neurotics are more inclined to crime as they are overly-anxious and unpredictable
  • psychotics are more inclined to crime as they display universally agreed on criminal traits such as aggression, impulsivity and risk-taking
• Eysenck developed an EPI ( eysencks personality inventory ) to measure individuals personality

  it uses a dichotomous scale to see the extent to which individuals fit on each dimension
• A03

  +EPI - uses standardised procedures on all individuals. this means it can therefore be applied to wider populations and is thus replicable. this means that the EPI is generalisable and can be used amongst many people to test for potential criminal personalities hence forth being reliable
• A03

  -criticised as over-simplistic - only having 3 personality dimensions can be seen as a limited approach. other theories such as digmans five factor model takes on a more realistic approach, including other factors that ,ay contribute to a criminal personality such as conscientiousness, agreeableness and intellect. therefore this challenges eysencks theory, lacking its reliability as it can be seen as limited
• A03

  • believes human personality is stable, yet human behaviour changes everyday. for example, someone may display extrovert characteristics with some people yet be introverted with other people. this therefore suggests human behaviour is fluid which means the theory can be criticised as being overly reductionist as it doesn't consider the fact that some personality will not fit into these rigid dimensions