Cognitive Explanations

Q: __Eysenck’s__ Theory of Personality Types and Criminal Behaviour

__Hans Eysenck__ developed three scales of personality: neuroticism-stability, extraversion-introversion, and psychoticism. He stated that criminals were more likely to be neurotic, extraverted and prone to psychoticism.

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Eysenck’s Theory of Personality Types and Criminal Behaviour

Hans Eysenck developed three scales of personality: neuroticism-stability, extraversion-introversion, and psychoticism. He stated that criminals were more likely to be neurotic, extraverted and prone to psychoticism.

Neuroticism-stability

Eysenck initially developed two scales of personality dimensions: neuroticism-stability and extraversion-introversion.
- Neuroticism-stability:
  - Individuals at the stable end tend to be more reliable and calm.
  - Whereas, individuals found at the neurotic end of the spectrum tend to demonstrate traits like anxiousness and restlessness.

Extraversion-introversion

Extraversion-introversion:
- People who demonstrate extroverted traits tend to be outgoing, talkative, sociable, impulsive, and assertive.
- People on the introverted end tend to be reserved, quiet, and passive.

Psychoticism

Later on in the 1970s Eysenck developed a third personality dimension: psychoticism.
Psychoticism is how prone someone is to psychotic breakdown.
- A psychotic breakdown is when a person, generally for the first time, experiences psychosis.
  - Psychosis is when a person has difficulty distinguishing between reality and fantasy.
The more prone a person is to one, the more hostile, aggressive and uncaring they tend to be.

Genetics and environment

Eysenck stated that individuals are genetically predisposed to particular personality types but also believed that the environment played a role.
The combination of personality types and environment can lead to criminality.

Age

Eysenck believed there are several personality traits that are predictors of criminal behaviour, psychoticism being a primary one.
He concluded that age also played a role.
He believed that extraversion was a stronger predictor of criminal behaviour in younger people.
He believed that neuroticism, on the other hand, was a strong predictor in older people.

Evaluation

Eysenck’s theory has been influential in psychology as it combines together the biological, psychological and social approaches.
A criticism of his theory would be that the criminal personality types are self-reported, which could lead to bias. Therefore his results lack reliability.

Criminal Thinking Patterns

The cognitive approach to criminology examines how criminals have different thought processes and cognitive distortions. Yochelson and Samenow (1976) attempted to determine common criminal thinking patterns.

Method:

255 male offenders were studied from a variety of different backgrounds over the course of 14 years, making it a longitudinal study.
Interviews of the offenders were conducted over the course of the 14 years.
Two groups were created based on the location of the offenders.

Participant groups:

The first group was from a hospital that was for ‘secure treatment’.
- The offenders here were found not guilty due to their mental illness.
The second group was made up of offenders from a ‘normal’ prison population.

Results:

Of the original 255 participants, only 30 finished the study.
52 thinking patterns were found to be common across all of the criminal participants.
These included three types of thinking patterns:
- Criminal thinking patterns, automatic thinking errors, and crime-related thinking errors.

Types of thinking patterns:

Criminal thinking patterns include feeling fear and a need for power/dominance.
Automatic thinking errors include lack of empathy, manipulativeness, lack of trust and impulsiveness.
Crime-related thinking errors include the offenders fantasising about criminal activity and behaviours

Conclusion:

There are common thinking patterns and thinking errors in criminals.
It is important to note that the researchers realised these errors may not be solely found in criminals, it is just that they are more likely to be found in criminals.

Evaluation: Criticisms

There was no control group, making the findings less valid.
The study demonstrated gender bias (beta bias) as only males were used. Therefore, the results cannot be generalised to the whole population.
Finally, it would be challenging and expensive to duplicate as it was a 14-year longitudinal study.

Evaluation: Strengths

It demonstrates ecological validity as it was conducted with actual prisoners.

Cognitive Distortions in Criminals

Cognitive distortions are irrational thought patterns that give people a distorted view of reality. Two studies (Gibbs et al, 1995; Liau et al, 1998) examined these distortions in criminals.

Warped reality

Cognitive distortions, or irrational thought patterns, can warp a person’s view of reality and lead the person to behave in different ways.
In other words, cognitive distortions can lead to criminal behaviour.

Gibbs et al. (1995)

Gibbs et al. (1995) identified four cognitive distortions that were correlated to criminal behaviour.
- Self-centred:
  - Only concerned about themselves and not others.
- Minimisation:
  - This is when they minimise the significance of their criminal behaviour.

Four cognitive distortions cont.

Blame:
- Blaming others for their problems.
Hostile attribution bias:
- The offenders believe that other people are ‘out to get them’ and other people have hostile/malicious intentions.

Liau et al. (1998)

Another study by Liau et al. (1998) compared cognitive distortions between 52 male criminal delinquents and a control group.
They found that cognitive distortions were higher amongst the delinquents.

Limitations

There is a correlation between cognitive distortions and criminal behaviour, however, causality has not been established.
It could be that cognitive distortions cause criminal behaviour or that criminal behaviour causes cognitive distortions.
Further studies would have to be done to determine causality.