Lesson 5 - Eysenck's Theory of the Criminal Personality

Eysenck developed the Eysenck Personality Inventory...

A psychological test which locates respondents along the extraversion and neuroticism dimensions to determine their personality type. - A later scale was introduced that is used to measure psychoticism.

- Digman's (1990)

Five Factor Model of personality suggests that openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness are important personality dimensions, in addition to extraversion and neuroticism. - Using this model multiple combinations are available.

Eysenck (1947) proposed that

behaviour could be represented along two dimensions: introversion/ extraversion and neuroticism/stability. - The two dimensions combine to form a variety of personality traits. - Eysenck later added a third dimension - psychoticism.

According to Eysenck (1947) our personality traits are biological in origin and

come about through the type of nervous system we inherit from our parents. - Therefore, all personality types, including the criminal personality type, have an innate, biological basis.

- The idea that all offending behaviour can be explained by a single personality type has been

heavily criticised as being simplistic. - Crime is too varied and complex for a behaviour to be due to one single personality type, the type of individual who commits murder is likely to be very different to one who commits fraud.

- Bartol and Holanchock (1979)

looked into cultural differences. - They studied Hispanic and African-American offenders in a maximum security prison in New York and divided them into six groups based on their criminal history and the nature of their offences. - All six groups were found to be LESS extravert than non-criminal control groups. This means Eysenck's theory could be culturally biased.

- Eysenck 's theory is out of step with

modern personality theory.

Eysenck believed that people with high extraversion and neuroticism scores had

nervous systems that made them difficult to condition, as a result they will not learn easily to respond to their anti-social impulses with anxiety. - Consequently they are more likely to act antisocially in situations where the opportunity presents itself.

Neurotic individuals tend to be

nervous, jumpy and over-anxious, and their general instability means their behaviour is often difficult to predict.

The criminal personality type is

neurotic-extravert. - In addition, Eysenck suggested a typical offender will also score highly on psychoticism - cold, unemotional and prone to aggression. - A combination of all of the characteristics and behaviours of extraversion and neuroticism.

- Eysenck's theory is based on the idea that it is possible to measure personality through

psychological tests. Critics have argued that personality may not be reducible to a score in this way. Many psychologists believe there is no such thing as stable personality, on a daily basis people's personality changes depending who they are with and the situation they are in.

- Farrington et al. (1982)

reviewed several studies and reported that offenders tended to score higher on psychoticism, but NOT on extraversion and neuroticism, than non-offenders.

Extraverts have an underactive nervous system so they are constantly

seeking excitement, and stimulation, and may engage in risk-taking behaviour. - They are difficult to condition and so do not learn from their mistakes.

In Eysenck's theory personality is linked to criminal behaviour via

socialisation. - Eysenck saw criminal behaviour as developmentally immature in that it is selfish and concerned with immediate gratification. - During socialisation children are taught to delay gratification and be socially orientated.