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The Personality of Female Prisoners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Sybil B. G. Eysenck  and
Hans J. Eysenck
Sybil B. G. Eysenck
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF
Hans J. Eysenck
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF
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Extract

The theory has been put forward in Crime and Personality (Eysenck, 1964) that criminals are characterized by a combination of extraverted and neurotic personality traits; put in operational terms, it was suggested that compared with a control group of normal (non-criminal) subjects they would have higher scores on the N and E scales of the MPI or the EPI (Eysenck, 1959; Eysenck and Eysenck, 1964). In the second edition of the book the further hypothesis was added that prisoners would also be characterized by high P scores; the letter P refers to a third dimension of personality provisionally entitled ‘psychoticism’. Earlier investigations of the N x E hypothesis have been reviewed in the second edition of Crime and Personality (Eysenck, 1970) and by Passingham (1972); the most recent study of both hypotheses is contained in two papers dealing with the personality makeup of male prisoners (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1970, 1971). The conclusions to be drawn from an examination of the literature are as follows: (1) As far as P is concerned, prisoners undoubtedly have much higher scores than do various types of control groups. (2) As far as N is concerned, most studies show prisoners to have significantly higher scores than controls. (3) As far as E is concerned, it appears that scores sometimes do and sometimes do not separate prisoners and controls in the predicted direction; it seems that we must distinguish between the two main components of E, i.e. sociability and impulsivity (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1969). Prisoners are significantly more impulsive, but less sociable, than controls.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 123 , Issue 577 , December 1973 , pp. 693 - 698
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1973 

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