Psychological Explanations - Eysenck

Question 1

What is the criminal personality?

Answer 1

-an individual who scores highly on measures of extraversion, neuroticism and psychotic and cannot easily be conditioned, is cold and is likely to engage in offending behaviour

Question 2

What did Eysenck propose about behaviour?

Answer 2

-can be represented along 2 dimensions and more recently added another
1. introversion-extraversion
2. neuroticism-stability
3. psychotism-sociability

Question 3

What is the biological basis?

Answer 3

-our traits are biological in origin and come from the NS we inherit

Question 4

What are extraverts?

Answer 4

-underactive NS
-constantly seek excitement + stimulation
-engage in risk taking behaviours
-tend to not condition easily = don’t learn from mistakes

Question 5

What are neurotics?

Answer 5

-high level of reaction in the symp NS
-respond quickly to situations of threat
-tend to be nervous
-behaviour is hard to predict

Question 6

What are psychotics?

Answer 6

-have higher levels of testosterone
-unemotional and prone to aggression

Question 7

What is socialisation?

Answer 7

-where personally is linked to OB via socialisation processes

Question 8

What did Eysenck assume about socialisation?

Answer 8

-that offenders are impatient and always demand immediate gratification

Question 9

What is the process of socialisation?

Answer 9

-children are taught to become more able to delay immediate gratification

Question 10

What is socialisation like with people with increased extraverts and neurotics?

Answer 10

-they have a NS that makes them hard to condition
-they are less likely to learn anxiety responses to antisocial responses
-they are more likely to act anti socially in situations where the opportunity presented itself

Question 11

How can the criminal personality be measured?

Answer 11

-Eysenck personality questionnaire

Question 12

What is the EPQ?

Answer 12

-form of psychological test which locates respondents along the E, N and P dimensions to determine personality type

Question 13

What does the EPQ allow?

Answer 13

-enabled him to conduct research relating personality variables to other behaviours like criminality

Question 14

What is a strength to Eysenck’s theory?

Answer 14

-Eysenck + Eysenck compared 2,070 male prisoners scores on the EPQ with 2422 male controls
-on measures of E, N and P prisoners recorded higher average scores than controls
-this agrees with the predictions of the theory that offenders rate higher than average across the three dimensions Eysenck identified

Question 15

What is a limitation to Eysenck’s theory in terms of personality?

Answer 15

-Moffitt distinguished between offending behaviour that only occurs in adolescence and that which continues into adulthood
-considers persistent in offending behaviour to be a reciprocal process between individual personality traits and environmental reactions to those traits
-this is a more complex picture than Eysenck suggested
-that offending behaviour is determined by an interaction between personality and the environment

Question 16

What is a limitation to Eysenck’s theory in terms of cultural factors?

Answer 16

-Barton + Holanchock
-studied Hispanic and African-American offenders in a New York prison
-dividing them into 6 groups based on offending history and offences
-all 6 groups were less extravert than a non-offenders control group
-they suggested this was because the sample was a different cultural group from that investigated b Eysenck
-questions generalisability of the criminal personality
-may be a culturally relative concept