Ao3

• limitation- EPI takes a reductionist approach

  • Personality traits are unlikely to all be accounted for using only 3 dimensions and measured by being assigned a single number.
  • These traits are also likely to change depending on who we interact with and under what circumstances, thus not always being stable. This means that such a reductionist approach may not offer an accurate account of personality and is an inconclusive explanation
  • however break down of behaviour easier to scientifically study
• limitation- culture bias

  • eyensecks sample culturally bias due to the largely Western culture from which the sample was drawn
  • For example, researchers found that a group of Hispanic and african-american convicts were less extravert compared to non-criminals (a control group), which suggests that Eysenck’s theory is not universal and so lacks generalisability to all cultures.
  • eynsenck cannot generalise his findings due to risk of imposed etic
• limitation

  • farrington et al
  • reviewed studies and found criminals scored highly on psychoticism but not on extraversion and neuroticism reducing valdity of theory
  • EEGs also show little difference in cortical arousal between extraverts and introverts- scientific empirical evidence further reducing reliability of eynsencks theory