Psychological Explanations - Eysenck's Theory Flashcards
What is Extraversion?
A biological need an individual has for either high or low levels of environmental stimulation. Traits include being sociable, no reflection, risk-taking and expressive.
What is Neuroticism?
The stability of personality and how stable their nervous system is. Traits include being anxious, having low self-esteem, moody and guilty feelings.
What is an example of Psychotocism?
Aggressive, egocentric, tough minded, manipulative.
What will an Extraverted personality look like?
They will have an underactive nervous system which means they seek excitement and engage in risk-taking behaviours.
What will a Neurotic personality look like?
Tend to be nervous, jumpy and over-anxious, and their general instability means their behaviour is often difficult to predict.
What will a Psychotic personality look like?
Higher levels of testosterone - they are cold, unemotional and prone to aggression.
What is the Criminal Personality?
High Neuroticism, High Psychoticism, high Extraversion.
Why is this the criminal personality?
People with high PNE will run the risk of offending because they find it harder to control their immature impulses.
What is the role of socialisation?
He saw criminal behaviour as developmentally immature - selfish and concerned with immediate gratification. They are impatient, and the process of socialisation teaches children to delay gratification and become more socially oriented. People with high E and N scores had nervous systems that make them difficult to condition - making them look for thrill seeking activities. As a result it is hard to condition them into social normalcy and would act antisocially often.
How did Eysenck obtain the data in his 1977 study?
Hans and Sybil Eysenck assessed 2070 male prisoners who ere compared to a control group of 2422 males. On measures of E, N and P, prisoners of all ages recorded higher scores than the control group - affirming his theory.
What is the limitation - Farrington?
He conducted a meta-analysis and found that offenders scored high on measures of P, but not E or N. There is very little evidence of consistent differences in EEG measures between extraverts and introverts, casting doubt on the physiological basis of Eysenck’s theory. This means some of the central assumptions have been challenged.
What is the limitation - Moffitt?
She distinguished between offending behaviour that only occurred in adolescence and that which continues into adulthood. She considers persistence in offending behaviour to be a reciprocal process between individual personality traits and environmental reactions to those traits. There is a more complex picture than Eysenck suggested - as there are interactions between personality and the environment.
What is the limitation - Bartol and Holanchock?
They looked into cultural differences, studying Hispanic and African-American offenders and divided them into 6 groups based on criminal history and nature of offence. It was revealed that all 6 were less extravert than a non-criminal control group. They suggested that this was because their sample was very different than investigated by Eysenck, questioning the generalisability of the criminal personality.
