Criminal Behaviour - Individual differences Explanation 1: Eysenck's criminal personality

Question 1

Eysenck’s theory of personality

Answer 1

• Eysenck developed a general theory of personality based on the idea that character traits tend to cluster along three dimensions:
  1. Extraversion - introversion
  2. Neuroticism - stability
  3. Psychoticism - normality

Question 2

Biological Basis

Answer 2

• Eysenck suggested that each trait has a biological basis which is mainly innate, claimed thatt 67% of the variance is due to genetic factors

Question 3

Link to criminal behaviour

Answer 3

• link can be explained in terms of arousal
• Extraverts seek more arousal and engage in dangerous activities.
• Neurotics are unstable and prone to over-react to situations of theat, explain some criminal activity
• Psychoticism - individuals are aggressive and lacking empathy.
• Also explained in terms of the outcome between innate personality and socialisation.
• Person is born with certain personality traits, but interactions with environment is key in the development of criminality

Question 4

Evaluation

Answer 4

• Support for link between personality and criminal behaviour
• Research on the genetic basis of personality
• Personality may not be consistent
• Personality tests may not be raliable

Question 5

Support link between personality and criminal behaviour

Answer 5

• Research comparing personalities of criminals and non-criminals - Dunlop et al - found that extraversion and psychoticism were good predictors of delinquency.
• Weakness - participants were all students and their friends and delinquency was an assessment of minor offences in the previous 12 months.
• Coleta van Dam et al - only a small group of male offenders in a juvinily detention centre had high scores on all three of Eysenck’s variables.

Question 6

Research on the genetic basis of personality

Answer 6

• Key element is that personality types have a biological basis
• Zuckerman twin studies supports this - found +.52 correlations for MZ twins on neuroticism coompared with +.24 for DZ twins.
• Not as high as Eysenck claimed - +.50 correlation means that about 40% of the variance in these traits is due to genes.

Question 7

Personality may not be consistent

Answer 7

• Psychologists suggests that people may be consistent in similar situations but not across situations. - may be calm at home but neurotic at work.
• Walter Mischel - asked family, friends and strangers to rate 63 students in variety of situations and found almost no correlation between traits displayed.
• Notion of criminal personality is flawed as people don’t simply have one personality.

Question 8

Personality tests may not be reliable

Answer 8

• Participants tend to give a socially desirable answer = they aren’t truthful
• Can use lie scales in questionnaires then socially desirable data can be discarded
• Cannot detect who is likely to become a criminal