EYSENCK’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY AO3

• Supporting evidence is provided by Frunham (1984) who tested 210 UK non-delinquents for personality, anomie, and social skills. They found that the best predictor of self-reported delinquency was psychoticism, then neuroticism, then anomie followed by extraversion and finally social skills.
• Frunham proved 


  These results clearly support the criminal personality theory and show that the theory could be applied to assess the likelihood of offending in those at risk. This could have positive social implications, such as creating a safer society However, we could also argue that this study lacks population validity and is culturally biased, as the sample were from the UK only. This suggests that the results should be treated with caution and calls into question the validity of the findings.
• An issue with this theory is that personality may not be consistent. Any theory on personality assumes that it is consistent. However, some suggest a situational perspective, suggesting that people may be consistent in similar situations but not across situations. For example, someone may be relaxed and calm at home but neurotic at work.
• Mischel et al (1982) supported the situational theory 


  They asked friends, family, and strangers to rate 63 students in a variety of situations and found no correlation between traits displayed. Any regularity of behaviour is likely to be due to the fact they tend to often be in similar situations. This is a criticism of Eysenck’s criminal personality, proposing that personality may not be consistent and that our personality can change in different situations. Therefore, a notion of one criminal personality is flawed as people don’t have ‘one’ personality.
• Methodological issue - the use of questionnaires to measure personality traits is questionable; participants are asked to select traits that apply to them, but their response may not be reflective of ‘reality’. In addition, people may give socially desirable answers and thus they are not truthful. Therefore, the data that underpins this theory may limit its validity. If this is the case, then we cannot rely on it as the only explanation for criminal behaviour.
• One criticism individual differences explanations are that they can be seen as being reductionist as it ignores the impact of environmental and biological factors in the decision-making process. Morals and thought processes are influenced by parental values and cannot be simply explained by personality traits or cognitive distortions.
• Further explanation as to why this theory is reductionist 


  This is a criticism of individual differences explanations as a range of social factors could influence criminal behaviour other than which are not considered by individual differences explanation.
• For example, according to a survey, crimes recorded by neighbourhood income deprivation decline in London (March 2020-February 2021) showed that 80% of crimes were recorded in the most deprived areas. This suggests that poverty could be a significant explanation for criminal behaviour which calls into question the validity of Eysenck’s personality theory and cognitive influences in explaining criminal behaviour.
• A final criticism of individual differences explanations is that they are deterministic.

  Eysenck’s criminal personality theory suggests that having a specific personality type predetermines your behaviour - if you have high psychoticism, extraversion and neuroticism (PEN), then you will commit criminal behaviour is a deterministic view, but this ignores individual differences.