Eysenck's theory of criminal personality
- Created by: hollydavies2
- Created on: 25-04-17 11:15
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- Eysenck's theory of criminal personality.
- Psychological explanations of offending behaviour.
- Suggests that all personalities are made up of certain traits and the extent to which you have those traits determines your personality. 3 Personality traits:
- EXTROVER-SION. An extravert is a social, impulsive, expressive, risk taking person. An introvert is the opposite, happy in own company and cautious.
- NEURO-TICISM. An individual; who exhibits nervousness, anxiety &obsessive ness. The opposite end is described as stable and having a care free attitude.
- PSYCHO-TICISM. Third trait added later. High on this scale means someone who is insensitive and unemotional with a lack of conscious. Eysenk believed that most people would score low on this scale but middle on the other two.
- The biological basis for the theory.
- Eysenck's theory is psychological but also biological as he argues that there is a innate biological basis for the personalities. Therefore we have a predisposition to inherit certain traits.
- Extroversion, due to low levels of arousal in the brain- seek excitement and stimulation from the environment.
- Neuroticism, Due to the ANS some people react swiftly and strongly to stress physiologically. High neuroticism would react quicker and to a greater degree- makes them difficult to predict their behaviour.
- Evaluation
- Application. Eysenck's theory helps with crime prevention- as it suggests there are traits which are linked to criminal behaviour, these are detectable in childhood, can modify.
- Supporting Evidence. Eysenck- compared 2070 male prisoner's score on the EPQ with 2422 male controls. Subdivided into age groups.Across all age groups the prisoners had high scores.
- The study has BETA BIAS. this is when the differences between males and females are reduced or ignore. As all the participants we male and it is not know if males and females may have personality differences. The support for the theory is reduced as it cannot be generalised to the whole population
- Contradicting Evidence. Farrington reviewed several studies. He reported that offenders tended to score high on P but not E&N. - does not support Eysenck's theory.
- Problems with Eysenck's Personality Test(EPQ). It is a self report method so is subject to social desirability and response bias , reducing the validity which the theory is based on so therefore reduces the support for the theory.
- Cultural bias. Bartol and Holanchock studied Hispanic ans African-American offenders in prison (Maximum security) divided them into 6 groups based on criminal history. They found that they were LESS extraverted than control group(non-criminals). this questions the theory.
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