Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Forensic Psychology
- The Cambridge Handbook of Forensic Psychology
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Forensic psychology:
- Part I Psychological underpinnings
- Part II Assessments
- 2.1 Child victims of sexual abuse
- 2.2 Credibility
- 2.3 Crime pattern analysis
- 2.4 Evaluating violence risk in young people
- 2.5 Eyewitness testimony
- 2.6 False memory
- 2.7 Intellectual disabilities and offending
- 2.8 Interrogative suggestibility and false confessions
- 2.9 Investigative interviewing
- 2.10 Mental health
- 2.11 Mentally disordered offenders
- 2.12 Memory
- 2.13 Offender profiling
- 2.14 Parenting capacity and conduct
- 2.15 Parole decision making
- 2.16 Personality and crime
- 2.17 Personality disorder classification in forensic settings
- 2.18 Polygraphy
- 2.19 Post-traumatic stress disorder
- 2.20 Psychopathy
- 2.21 Risk and dangerousness in adults
- 2.22 Sexual offender assessment
- 2.23 Statement validity analysis
- 2.24 Suicide risk in adolescents and adults
- 2.25 Vulnerable adults’ capacity
- Part III Interventions
- Part IV Psychology and criminal behaviour
- Part V Psychology and civil law
- Part VI Special topics
- Part VII Professional practice
- Part VIII Research practice
- Author index
- Subject index
2.16 - Personality and crime
from Part II - Assessments
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
By
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Forensic Psychology
- The Cambridge Handbook of Forensic Psychology
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Forensic psychology:
- Part I Psychological underpinnings
- Part II Assessments
- 2.1 Child victims of sexual abuse
- 2.2 Credibility
- 2.3 Crime pattern analysis
- 2.4 Evaluating violence risk in young people
- 2.5 Eyewitness testimony
- 2.6 False memory
- 2.7 Intellectual disabilities and offending
- 2.8 Interrogative suggestibility and false confessions
- 2.9 Investigative interviewing
- 2.10 Mental health
- 2.11 Mentally disordered offenders
- 2.12 Memory
- 2.13 Offender profiling
- 2.14 Parenting capacity and conduct
- 2.15 Parole decision making
- 2.16 Personality and crime
- 2.17 Personality disorder classification in forensic settings
- 2.18 Polygraphy
- 2.19 Post-traumatic stress disorder
- 2.20 Psychopathy
- 2.21 Risk and dangerousness in adults
- 2.22 Sexual offender assessment
- 2.23 Statement validity analysis
- 2.24 Suicide risk in adolescents and adults
- 2.25 Vulnerable adults’ capacity
- Part III Interventions
- Part IV Psychology and criminal behaviour
- Part V Psychology and civil law
- Part VI Special topics
- Part VII Professional practice
- Part VIII Research practice
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
This chapter addresses the link between personality and criminal behaviour. Such a linkage implies a causal connection and this leads to strong views being exchanged, notably between those advocating a biosocial, personality-centred explanation for crime and those adopting a more sociological position. Among the few theoretical models that link personality to criminal behaviour, the most influential has been that of Hans Eysenck. Eysenck identifies three major personality traits: Extraversion (E), Neuroticism (N) and Psychoticism (P). A great advantage of the Eysenckian approach is that it provides testable hypotheses with which to support or disconfirm the basic model. Another theoretical model is offered in Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory. One of the most important caveats in the study of personality and crime is the fact that criminals do not constitute a single homogeneous group. Measures of personality traits demonstrate that the variance of offender samples is equivalent to that of nonoffenders.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Forensic Psychology , pp. 259 - 266Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010