Hans Eysenck's Theory of Personality

Eysenck’s Personality
typology
Identifying and Measuring the Main Dimensions of Personality
Extroversion
Neuroticism
Psychoticism
The Role of Socialization
Identifying and Measuring the Main
Dimensions of Personality
• Eysenck defined personality as a more or less stable and enduring
organization of a person’s character, temperament, intellect, and physique,
which determines his unique adjustment to the environment.
• Character denotes a person’s more or less stable and enduring system of
cognitive behavior (will); temperament, his more or less stable and
enduring system of affective behavior (emotion); intellect, his more or less
stable and enduring system of cognitive behavior (intelligence); physique,
his more or less stable and enduring system.
• Thus, his definition emphasized traits (stable and enduring characteristics),
which, when clustered together, are organized as types.
• Eysenck’s typology is hierarchically organized, and consists of types, traits,
and habits.
• Types are most abstract, followed by traits, and then habits.
• Specifically, each of the type concepts is based on a set of observed

intercorrelations among various traits.
• Each trait, in turn, is inferred from intercorrelations among habitual

responses.
• Habitual responses, in turn, are based on specific observable responses.

• On the basis of numerous factor analyses of personality data gathered
from different subject populations all over the world, Eysenck derived
two factors that could readily be labeled introversion/extraversion
and stability/neuroticism.
• Later, on the basis of other statistical analyses, he postulated a third

dimension, impulse control/psychoticism .
• These three dimensions, according to Eysenck, are the major

individual difference types most useful in describing personality
functioning.
The Role of Socialization
• According to Eysenck, socialized conduct is mediated by conscience,
which he defines as the sum total of an individual’s learned or
conditioned responses.
• Individuals learn behaviors that run counter to their own wishes in
order to avoid being punished by authority figures such as parents,
teachers, and clergy.
• For example, they must learn to be clean, not to defecate or urinate
whenever and wherever they please, and to control their sexual and
aggressive impulses.
• They also must learn not to lie, not to fight with others who disagree
with them, and not to steal.
• Any performance of these behaviors meets with punishment.
• Thus, through conditioning, individuals learn to desist from
performing behaviors that society believes harmful.
• The members of society also reward individuals for exhibiting certain
behaviors, and thereby shape their behavior in ways that society
considers acceptable.
• Individuals differ in the degree to which they learn the rules of
society.
• Specifically, Eysenck proposed that introverts learn the rules more
quickly and efficiently than do extraverts.
• He believes that the basis for these differences is genetic: introverts
have chronically higher cortical arousal than do extraverts; arousal
tends to facilitate learning; therefore, introverts learn more readily
than extraverts
• Because it is more difficult for extraverts to learn societal rules, they
tend to be under socialized, whereas extreme introverts tend to be
over socialized.
• Extraverts are less mature generally than introverts; that is, introverts
learn how to behave appropriately (in line with societal demands) at a
much earlier age.
• Because they are less readily conditioned, extraverts experience less
inhibition with respect to antisocial behavior.
• Thus, criminals tend to be extraverted.
• Extraversion in combination with neuroticism, Eysenck noted,
facilitates the development of criminality.
• Research has also shown that it is primarily the impulsivity rather
than the sociability component that is related to criminality
• Introverts, in contrast, are characterized by an over readiness to form
very strong consciences; they tend to be wracked by guilt and anxiety
whenever they think about violating the rules of society.
• As a result, they are unlikely to turn to crime.
• Eysenck believed that, under stressful conditions, extreme
introversion may lead to obsessive compulsive, phobic, or depressive
behavior.
• Eysenck also explained the shyness of neurotic introverts in terms of
their innate arousal levels.
• Shyness is likely to occur in social situations characterized by stress,
such as meeting new people or facing the possibility of criticism or
disapproval by authority figures.
• Psychoticism and intelligence level have also been linked to antisocial and
criminal behavior.
• Criminals tend to have low IQs, according to Eysenck.
• One possible explanation, he suggested, is that people whose intelligence
is low enough to prove a handicap in achieving educational success will
find it difficult to earn a satisfactory living along conventional lines and,
therefore, may turn to crime.
• Critics argue that it is not low intelligence that causes criminality, but
rather the criminals’ socioeconomic background.
• More specifically, they argue that the criminals’ poverty deprives them of
opportunities to increase their IQs through education, so that eventually
they are motivated to engage in illegal activities.
• But Eysenck maintained that the scientific evidence shows that IQ has an
effect on criminal behavior independent of social class (and race, for that
matter).

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Eysenck’s Personality

• Types are most abstract, followed by traits, and then habits.

• Specifically, each of the type concepts is based on a set of observed

• Each trait, in turn, is inferred from intercorrelations among habitual

• Habitual responses, in turn, are based on specific observable responses.

• Later, on the basis of other statistical analyses, he postulated a third

• These three dimensions, according to Eysenck, are the major

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