Eysenck believed everyone had a form of a criminal personality. Criminal personality is a set of relatively fixed traits that are associated with people who commit crimes. He believed everyone is born with these traits, but genetic inheritance means they vary depending on the person. The three main traits that Eysenck considered to be criminal are extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.
Extraversion - An extrovert is someone who is outgoing, sociable, and confident. Others who are shyer, unassertive, and quiet are considered to be introverted.
Neuroticism - Those who are anxious, angry, and prone to feeling guilt often have high levels of neuroticism. People who are calm, not easily stressed, and even-tempered are those with stability.
Psychoticism - People who are warm, considerate, and conscientious are high impulse controllers, ergo, they are the opposite to those with high psychoticism levels (who are impulsive, aggressive, and selfish).
Extraversion - An extrovert is someone who is outgoing, sociable, and confident. Others who are shyer, unassertive, and quiet are considered to be introverted.
Neuroticism - Those who are anxious, angry, and prone to feeling guilt often have high levels of neuroticism. People who are calm, not easily stressed, and even-tempered are those with stability.
Psychoticism - People who are warm, considerate, and conscientious are high impulse controllers, ergo, they are the opposite to those with high psychoticism levels (who are impulsive, aggressive, and selfish).
The average scores people usually get for the traits.
A personality can be adjudged to be anywhere within the boundaries of all three traits.
Those who scored high with all three traits - in Eysenck's eyes - had a criminal personality and, in retrospect, were criminals.
Those who scored high with all three traits - in Eysenck's eyes - had a criminal personality and, in retrospect, were criminals.
- Criminals are often extroverts as they need to be thrill seekers to receive the stimulation they need to commit a crime.
- People with high levels of neuroticism use behaviour to relieve their high anxiety levels, including criminal behaviour. Their high anxiety levels can also make it harder to punish themselves for criminal, or anti-social behaviour, leading to struggles with learning from past mistakes.
- Criminals tend to be psychotics because they have multiple direct links to crime.
- Neuroticism is linked to activity in the ANS (Automatic Nervous System), which is activated during emotion-inducing situations which regulates the brain's limbic system. Eysenck stated that when the ANS gets over-aroused it leads to high levels of violence.
- He also suggested that psychoticism is the result of an excess of dopaminergic neurons, which causes too much dopamine to be made by the nervous system. This could create less restriction of impulses in the brain during synaptic transmission.
Criticisms
- This theory was accused of ignoring individual differences. Rather than allowing people to be unique, Eysenck placed people into three broad categories.
- With so many crimes, it is unlikely that all criminals share the same traits. Within these traits, it is hard to believe that a spontaneous mugger has the same three main personality traits as a well-thought out murderer.
- The theory is too specific. The theory suggests that all people born with high levels of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism are born criminals.
- Does psychoticism cause criminal behaviour? Critics believe that psychoticism doesn't cause criminal behaviour - like Eysenck's theory suggests - rather, it defines it.
- The nature versus nurture debate: although this theory does shed light onto both sides of the debate, critics argue that it does not put enough emphasis on the side of nurture. It also fails to mention if putting young people into the correct environment can help decrease their levels of these traits.