Health Guidelines: Psychoticism and Neuroticism - Term Paper Example

Personality, Extraversion, Neuroticism and Psychoticism Name Institution Course Date Personality, Extraversion, Neuroticism and Psychoticism Forensic psychology refers to the application of psychology in the criminal and civil justice system. Pioneer psychologists such as Hugo Munsterberg (1863 – 1916) were among the first to champion the application of criminal psychology in research and theories. This was further extended to involve witness memory, false confessions, and the role of hypnosis in court. As a result upcoming psychologists developed interest in trying to uncover the role of personality in forensic psychology; hence the use of ‘personality” in reference to the relatively stable characteristics of an individual that often ensures consistency in their behavior across different situations. However, in 1964 Hans Eysenck’s definition of criminal behavior was based on his very influential theory of personality; hence ‘the theory of offending.’ This theory despite the naming, conceives of criminal behavior as a cumulative result of interactions between processes occurring at several levels of explanation (Figure below). This is also ascribed to by Bartol and Bartol (2005) who in their study concluded that criminal behavior culminates from the interaction between environmental conditions and features of the nervous system. Eysenck’s emphasis was on the genetic predisposition toward antisocial and criminal behavior; whereby individual offenders were discovered to have a unique neurophysiological makeup that when combined with certain environment more often than not results in criminality (Bartol & Bartol, 2008). As a matter of caution, Eysenck’s theory shied away from the notion that criminals were born; but rather the combination of environment, neurobiolagicala and personality factors gave rise to different types of crimes, and the different personalities were inevitably linked to specific criminal activity. This concept of criminal behavior, Eysenck further explains: “It is not itself, or criminality that is innate; it is certain peculiarities of the central and autonomic nervous system that react with the environment, with upbringing, and many other environmental factors to increase the probability that a given person would act in a certain antisocial manner” (Eysenck & Gudjonsson, 1989). In his fundamental studies, Eysenck postulated that the great variation evident in people’s personalities was a result of two dimensions linked with the operation of the individual’s nervous system; Extraversion (E) and Neuroticism (N). The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) was a simple pencil-and-paper measurement of a person’s level of E and N. in his view, the individuals with high E scores tend to be sociable, active, lively and sensation seeking. Because E is determined by the overall level of arousal in the person’s CNS and ANS, high E-scorers tend to exhibit a low level of arousal and thus their strong reaction to aversive stimuli. On the other hand, N-scorers tend to be anxious, depressed and react very strongly to aversive stimuli. N is dependent on the overall level of lability in the person’s CNS; i.e. a low N score means the person is stable, with relatively unreactive nervous system, while a high N score, means a high degree of instability. The base of neuroticism is frequently linked to the emotional area of the brain. This dimension reacts to how one successfully deals with stressful events. Whereas the extraversion center of the brain is linked to the central nervous system, neuroticism relates to the autonomic nervous system (Bartol & Bartol, 2008, p. 105). Neurotic individuals are believed to achieve an emotional level quickly and then remain at that level for a longer amount of time than nonneurotic individuals (Eysenck & Gudjonsson, 1989). Further in his classification, Eysenck added another dimension of personality, psychoticism (P); in an effort to identify behaviors that were not explained by neuroticism and extraversion. Although he was less clear on how P related to the nervous system, he pointed out that high P-scorers were aggressive, antisocial, cold and egocentric (and steered away from the clinical definition of psychotic which means out of touch with reality). Heath and Martin (1990) psychoticism conceptualized it as a continuum of liability to psychosis with ‘psychopathy’ as a halfway state towards psychosis. In a nutshell, Eysenck retorted that E, N and P were genetic-determined and each trait was normally distributed in the population. Hence, most individuals score average on E, N and P, while extreme scorers are rare and the more extreme a score, the rarer it is. Thus as a behaviorist, Eysenck considered learned habits of great importance, but more importantly he considered personality differences as growing out of our genetic inheritance (Boeree, 1998) E, N, P and Criminal Behavior According to Eysenck’s theory, personality is linked to criminal process through socialization process. In his analysis, criminal behavior was developmentally immature, selfish and entirely focused on self gratification. The socialization process is whereby children are taught to become more able to delay gratification and rather be more sociable. Primarily, this is achieved through conditioning; by punishing the children when they act in an immature way. Consequently, they associate anxiety with antisocial behavior; to the point of avoiding the immature behavior, because at the thought of behaving antisocially generates anxiety. However, E and N high-scorers had nervous systems that made them difficult to condition. as a result, they would not learn easily to respond to antisocial impulses with anxiety. Instead, they would be more likely to act antisocially in situations where the opportunity presented itself (Burke, 2001). Eysenck’s theory Considering the diverse areas that this theory covers, most aspects are not easy to test. However, the fundamental prediction of comparing offenders and non-offenders positively denoted the expected high E, N and P scores for offenders. This measurement was evident in Howitt’s (2009) comparison of E, N and P scores with self-reports of delinquency in schoolchildren and students. Just as Eysenck had predicted, the study found that those who reported higher levels of delinquency also scored high on E, N and P. this was however not the case from studies of ‘official’ delinquency (for example, comparing convicted offenders with non-offenders); instead, the results are not as ‘clear cut’. This different dimension was brought out by Farrington et al (1982) after reviewing 16 studies of the relationship between E, N and P. in contrast, they found out that in the majority of cases, offenders scored higher on P and N, but not on E as expected. A similar pattern of offenders showing a higher P and N and not E scores was established by Hollin (1989). Although, the inconsistency in the relationship between E and offending is not clear, Heath and Martin (1990) hinged on the possibility of E scales measuring two things; sociability and impulsiveness, and that criminality is associated with the latter and not the former. Furthermore, the study Interrogation and False Confessions among Adolescents: Differences between Bullies and Victims by Gudjonsson, et al (2009), was aimed at establishing the relationship between false confessions during custodial interrogation and group bullying. From samples of Icelandic and European pupils, the study found out that bully-victims have a history of giving false confessions when interrogated by police and pure bullies the least likely, with pure victims falling in between the two other groups. Therefore, in support of the inconsistency that of E with offending, delinquency in children is affected by their age (high E, N and P) while ‘official’ delinquents are mature enough to face their fates; hence high P and N. According to Trasler (1987), the suggested link between crime and specific personality types does, however, have some intuitive strength. Those individuals who are labeled as psychopaths, or as suffering from antisocial personality disorder, will have shown a resistance to conditioning from an early age, as well as the sort of personality characteristics which are likely to produce conflict. Eysenck’s theory evaluated Although empirical evidence to support Eysenck’s theory exists, critics have argued that the data is flawed. Because research in this area is heavily dependent on the self-report measures of personality scales devised by Eysenck and his peers, some researchers, including Farrington et al (2009), have pointed out the possibility of the scales being subject to response bias. Furthermore, the critics have pointed an accusing finger on the supposed heavy use of comparisons between convicted offenders against the general population. This is because the comparison therefore excludes individuals who commit crime and are not caught and convicted. Hence, they content that the series of studies could only be telling us about the personality characteristics of ‘unsuccessful’ offenders; nothing more! Away from the dissatisfaction of the sampling and response bias, the somewhat ‘circular’ nature of the theory has elicited another argument. For example the psychoticism scale, whereby respondents answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a series of statements about whether they act aggressively and selfishly, to measure P. The scale scores being used to ‘explain’why high P-scorers act aggressively and antisocially, is rather unsatisfactory and thus P has been considered a significant weakness of Eysenck’s theory since it is far from clear what (if anything) it measures. Considering Eysenck’s view of personality as a set of stable traits, issues arose as to whether they singly cause people to behave consistently across different situations. This theory of personality being one among other explanations to criminal activity, situationalist theorists on personality beg to differ, arguing that no such consistency has ever been proven to exist. This supposed ‘consistency’ in people’s behavior, Mischel (1968) believes is just but an illusion that arises from the fact that we usually observe people in similar situations. Thus, this begs the question on the existence of the stable personality traits on which Eysenck’s personality theory is founded upon. Furthermore, Howitt (2009) seems to establish more faults with Eysenck’s theory; by primarily the inability of the theory to address majority of the concerns of forensic psychologists touching on specific types of crimes. For instance, the generalization of child abusers and rapists as extroverts, neurotics or psychotic fails to fundamentally establish the cause of such behaviors. This quest for justification for certain criminal behaviors exposes the weaknesses in most personality theories, including Eysenck’s theory. However, when it comes to prevention of crime Eysenck’s theory has been found to point in the right direction; via the socialization process. The socialization process is whereby children are taught to become more able to delay gratification and rather be more sociable. Primarily, this is achieved through conditioning; by punishing the children when they act in an immature way. According to the theory, these underlying tendencies that eventually manifest themselves as criminal behavior can be detected in childhood and can be modified especially in high risk individuals, to prevent their development into offenders. As such, great interventions based on parenting or early treatment for delinquency can be adopted in reducing criminal behavior. Antisocial personality disorder and criminality As denoted by Eysenck’s psychoticism component of personality theory, most people with antisocial disorder exhibit traits of impulsivity, high negative emotionality, low conscientiousness and associated behaviors including irresponsible and exploitative behavior, recklessness and deceitfulness. More often than not, such behaviors are evident in unstable interpersonal relationships, reckless behavior, disregard for the consequences of one’s behavior, egocentricity, a failure to learn from experience, and disregard for the feelings of others. Thus such individuals are known for a wide range of interpersonal and social disturbance; criminal behavior (Trasler, 1987). Trasler (1987) further denotes that the link between crime and specific personality types does, however, have some intuitive strength. Those individuals who are labeled as psychopaths, or as suffering from antisocial personality disorder, will have shown a resistance to conditioning from an early age, as well as the sort of personality characteristics which are likely to produce conflict. Such individuals with antisocial personality disorder have a history of fractured families whereby parental conflict is typical and parenting is harsh or inconsistent. Interrupted child care often transferred to agencies outside the family results from parental inadequacies and/or the child’s difficult behavior. In turn truancy results in addition to delinquent associates and substance misuse which often culminate to joblessness, dilapidated housing conditions, and inconsistency in adulthood relationships. Hence the criminal conviction resulting from antisocial behavior results in imprisonment or young deaths due to the reckless behavior. Although criminal behavior is highly associated with antisocial personality disorder, it squarely depends on the individual’s previous long-standing difficulties often in form of socioeconomic, educational and family problems. Thus, antisocial personality disorder amounts to more than criminal behavior alone, otherwise all convicted criminals would meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder; while the disorder would be minimal in people with no criminal record. However, this is not the case, as there are numerous cases of individuals committing crimes and escape the snare of the law without being imprisoned of convicted for their crimes. As a matter of fact, research has shown that the prevalence of antisocial behavior among prisoners is slightly below 50%; with epidemiological studies in the community placing the number of people with significant arrest records who meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder at 47%. During the study, it was evident people antisocial personality disorder were common with a history of aggression, unemployment and promiscuity rather than the more serious crimes. Actually, the prevalence of antisocial personality disorder in the general population is 3% for men and 1% for women; hence gender is also a factor in the prevalence rates (Mischel, 1968). The current diagnostic systems might overlook the age of the individual, with current diagnosis beginning at 18 years, but cases of antisocial personality disorder manifests in form of conduct disorder. These individuals of conduct disorder often show antisocial, aggressive or defiant behavior, that is usually persistent and repetitive, including aggression to people or animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness, disregard for the law, and even theft. Therefore, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV), a history of conducts disorder before the age of 15 is a requirement. Living with antisocial personality disorder often varies, as though full recovery might be attained over time, some people may continue to experience social and interpersonal difficulties. Extreme cases of the disorder often result into depression, anxiety and alcohol and drug misuse. Thus families as well as carers are crucial in the prevention and treatment of antisocial personality disorder. This continuous support from friends and attorneys of the individuals ought to adhere to proper treatment and care, including taking into account their needs and preferences. These individuals should have the opportunity to make informed decisions concerning their care and treatment, of course with the help of healthcare professionals. In situations where the individual is in no position to make a decision, healthcare professionals should adhere to the Department of Health guidelines and follow the code of practice that accompanies the Mental Capacity Act. Patients below the age of sixteen should be taken care of using the ‘Seeking consent: working with children’ guideline. References Bartol C. R. & Bartol, A. M., (2005). Criminal Behavior: A Psychological Approach. New York: Pearson Education, Limited. Boeree, C. G. (1998). Hans Eysenck (1916 - 1997) (and other temperament theorists). Retrieved October 10, 2003 from http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/eysenck.html Burke, R. H. (2001). An introduction to criminological theory. Criminal Justice Review, 377‐381. Eysenck, H. J., and Gudjonsson, G. H. (1989). The causes and cures of criminality. New York: Plenum. Farrington, et al. (1998). Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders: Risk Factors and Successful Interventions. New York: SAGE publishers. Gudjonsson, G. H., Sigurdsson, J. F., & Sigfusdottir, I. D. (2009). Interrogations and false confessions among adolescents in seven countries in Europe. What background and psychological factors best discriminate between false confessors and non-false confessors? Psychology, Crime and Law. Heath, A. C., & Martin, N. G. (1990). Psychoticism as a dimension of personality: A multivariate genetic test of Eysenck and Eysenck's psychoticism construct. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 111-121. Howitt, D. (2009). Introduction to forensic and criminal psychology. Australia: Pearson Education Australia. Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York: Wiley Trasler, G. (1987). Some cautions for the biological approach to crime causation. In S. A. Mednick, T. E. Moffitt, & S. S. Stack (Eds.), The causes of crime (pp. 7–23). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Read More

This dimension reacts to how one successfully deals with stressful events. Whereas the extraversion center of the brain is linked to the central nervous system, neuroticism relates to the autonomic nervous system (Bartol & Bartol, 2008, p. 105). Neurotic individuals are believed to achieve an emotional level quickly and then remain at that level for a longer amount of time than nonneurotic individuals (Eysenck & Gudjonsson, 1989). Further in his classification, Eysenck added another dimension of personality, psychoticism (P); in an effort to identify behaviors that were not explained by neuroticism and extraversion.

Although he was less clear on how P related to the nervous system, he pointed out that high P-scorers were aggressive, antisocial, cold and egocentric (and steered away from the clinical definition of psychotic which means out of touch with reality). Heath and Martin (1990) psychoticism conceptualized it as a continuum of liability to psychosis with ‘psychopathy’ as a halfway state towards psychosis. In a nutshell, Eysenck retorted that E, N and P were genetic-determined and each trait was normally distributed in the population.

Hence, most individuals score average on E, N and P, while extreme scorers are rare and the more extreme a score, the rarer it is. Thus as a behaviorist, Eysenck considered learned habits of great importance, but more importantly he considered personality differences as growing out of our genetic inheritance (Boeree, 1998) E, N, P and Criminal Behavior According to Eysenck’s theory, personality is linked to criminal process through socialization process. In his analysis, criminal behavior was developmentally immature, selfish and entirely focused on self gratification.

The socialization process is whereby children are taught to become more able to delay gratification and rather be more sociable. Primarily, this is achieved through conditioning; by punishing the children when they act in an immature way. Consequently, they associate anxiety with antisocial behavior; to the point of avoiding the immature behavior, because at the thought of behaving antisocially generates anxiety. However, E and N high-scorers had nervous systems that made them difficult to condition.

as a result, they would not learn easily to respond to antisocial impulses with anxiety. Instead, they would be more likely to act antisocially in situations where the opportunity presented itself (Burke, 2001). Eysenck’s theory Considering the diverse areas that this theory covers, most aspects are not easy to test. However, the fundamental prediction of comparing offenders and non-offenders positively denoted the expected high E, N and P scores for offenders. This measurement was evident in Howitt’s (2009) comparison of E, N and P scores with self-reports of delinquency in schoolchildren and students.

Just as Eysenck had predicted, the study found that those who reported higher levels of delinquency also scored high on E, N and P. this was however not the case from studies of ‘official’ delinquency (for example, comparing convicted offenders with non-offenders); instead, the results are not as ‘clear cut’. This different dimension was brought out by Farrington et al (1982) after reviewing 16 studies of the relationship between E, N and P. in contrast, they found out that in the majority of cases, offenders scored higher on P and N, but not on E as expected.

A similar pattern of offenders showing a higher P and N and not E scores was established by Hollin (1989). Although, the inconsistency in the relationship between E and offending is not clear, Heath and Martin (1990) hinged on the possibility of E scales measuring two things; sociability and impulsiveness, and that criminality is associated with the latter and not the former. Furthermore, the study Interrogation and False Confessions among Adolescents: Differences between Bullies and Victims by Gudjonsson, et al (2009), was aimed at establishing the relationship between false confessions during custodial interrogation and group bullying.

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