Eysenck

Question 1

Supporting evidence

Answer 1

Eysenck provides evidence to support his theory of the criminal
personality. He compared 2070 male prisoners’ scores on the EPQ with 2422 male controls. Groups were subdivided into age groups ranging from 16 to 69 years. On measures of psychoticism, extraversion and neuroticism, across all ages, prisoners recorded higher scores than controls. This supports Eysenck’s predictions of what constitutes a criminal personality.However, Farrington et al., (1982) reviewed several studies and reported that offenders
tended to score high on Psychoticism measures, but not for Extroversion and Neuroticism.
There is also very little evidence of consistent differences in EEG measures between extraverts
and introverts, which casts doubt on the biological basis of Eysenck’s theory. This suggests that the link between personality traits and criminal behaviour is unclear.

Question 2

Over simplistic

Answer 2

the idea that all offending behaviour can be explained by Eysenck’s three
personality dimensions can be heavily criticised. Digman’s (1990) Five Factor Model of personality suggests that alongside Extroversion and Neuroticism, there are additional dimensions of Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. From this perspective, multiple combinations are available and therefore a high Extroversion and Neuroticism
score does not mean offending is inevitable. Other psychologists also believe that personality is not consistent and will change depending on the situation and who a person is with. This means that the notion of a criminal personality is flawed as people do not simply
have ‘one’ fixed personality type, criminal or otherwise.

Question 3

methodological issue

Answer 3

An issue with Eysenck’s theory of criminal personality is the method
he used to develop his theory of criminal personality. He used the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) to assess an individual’s personality, with the score or label given to the person depending on the answers they provide on the personality questionnaire. An issue is that the EPQ uses simple yes/no questions which offer a “forced choice” between an answer
which is high in the trait or an answer which is low. This is an issue as they are asked to select
traits that best apply to them, but their responses may not represent ‘reality’ and may inaccurately label a person as having/not having a criminal personality. Also, as offenders are often used in the sample, socially desirability bias may occur which may question the
truthfulness of the responses provided, decreasing the validity. This therefore suggests that
careful considerations of the measure used should be made prior to drawing any conclusions
about criminal personalities.