Psychological theory - Criminal personality

Eysenck (1947) argues that personality is mafde up of two factors: introversion/extraversion and neuroticism/stability.

  • Extraverts = outgoing, sociable, seek stimulation, ricks and thrill seekers. This is because they inherit an under aroused nervous system and so seek stimulation to restore it

  • Introverts = quiet and reserved. They are already over-aroused and therefore shun sensation and stimulation

  • Neuroticism = anxiety and emotional instabilitsy

  • Stable = calm amd even tempered

  • A later addition to this model was psychoticism = cold, aggressive and hostile

Results:

People who score high on extraversion and neuroticism do not condition well.

Therefore these personality types would be more common in criminal populations.

They would also score high on psychoticism.

Biological basis

According to Eysenck, personality traits are biological in origin and are produced through the type of nervous system we have - either overactive or underactive.

This leads to the changes in cortical arousal and brain excitation or inhibition of the sympathetic nervous system which causes us to behave differently.

Extraverts

Underactive nervous system leads to them constantly seeking excitement, stimulation and engaging in risk-taking behaviour.

They do not condition easily and do not learn from mistakes.

Neuroticists

Tend to be nervous, jumpy and over-anxious. Their general instability makes them hard to predict.

Have nervous system that responds very quickly under stressful conditions.
Tend to over-react quickly.

Eysenck’s theory = Personality is linked to criminal behaviour via socialisation processes.

  • Socialisation is where children are taught to become more socially orientation and are able to delay gratification.

Because individuals with high E & N scores have nervous systems that are difficult to condition, they would not easily become conditioned to respond to antisocial impulses with anxiety, therefore, when the opportunity of an antisocial situation presents itself, they will act antisocially.

Eysenck and his wife Sybil (1977) assessed 2070 male prisoners who were compared to a control group of 2422 males. On measures of E, N, and P, prisoners recorded higher scores than the control group whic accords with the prediction of the theory.

  • Review of studies relating Eysenck’s personality dimensions to official and self-reported offending included that high N (but not E) was related to official offending, while high E (but not N) was related to self-reported offending (Farrington et al. 1982)

  • Could prison cause neuroticism and not the other way around?

Psychological Theory - Criminal Personality

  • McGurk and McDougall (1981) used a personality questionnaire based on Eysenck’s theory and gave it to 100 “delinquent” college students and 100 students who were not delinquent

  • They found significant differences between the two groups

  • Within te deliquent student sample there were students with both high neuroticism and high extraversion, as well as a sub group who scored high on neuroticism, extraversion and psychoticism

  • In the non-delinquent group however, there were a significant percentage of ndividuals with high neuroticism and extraversion scores.

AO3