Eysenck's theory

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  Supporting evidence for Eysenck’s personality theory comes from Eysenck who found that out of 2070 male prisoners (compared to a control group) ages 16 - 69, the prisoners recorded higher on psychoticism, extroversion and neuroticism.

  This supports the theory and thus increases the validity.
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  Farrington et al found that offenders scored highly on the psychoticism rating but not always highly on extrovertism and neuroticism and therefore the findings don’t support the influence of all 3 traits.

  There is also little evidence from EEG measures to suggest differences between extroverts and introverts.

  Therefore there is a lack of evidence and therefore the theory lacks validity.
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  There are also issues of gender bias and culture bias.

  This is because the research is based on male prisoners and male controls and therefore research can’t be generalised to other genders. That’s because it pathologises other gender as a form of alpha bias.

  It has culture bias because other research on Hispanic and African American offenders has shown there are less extroverts in the criminal group.

  Therefore this contradicts Eysenck and shows the research can’t be generalised to other cultures and genders.
• Eysencks theory suggests you have specific traits that determine your personality.

  He proposed that there were 2 personality dimensions :

  • extroversion - introversion
  • neuroticism - stability

  He then added another known as psychoticism.

  He developed these into a questionnaire known as the EPI to measure personality.
• Extroverts :

  • Are sociable, impulsive and risk taking
  • Have low levels of arousal
  • have an under active nervous system
  • seek excitement and stimulation
• Neuroticism :

  • are nervous, anxious and obsessive
  • their ANS reacts swiftly and strongly to stress
  • likely to commit crime in emotional situation
• Psychoticism :

  • insensitive, unemotional and lack a conscience
  • don’t hold back and have less concern for others
  • have no prevention of committing the crime - they just do it
• Eysenck linked personality to criminal behaviour via socialisation processes.

  Eysenck stated that people with high extrovertism and neuroticism scores had nervous systems that made it more difficult to delay gratification and be more socially orientated.

  This results in them not easily learning to respond to antisocial impulses with anxiety and therefore they would be more likely to act antisocially.