Crime and Personality was published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1964, and it represents Eysenck’s most sustained application of his personality theory to a specific social problem. The book argues that criminal behavior is not primarily the product of social disadvantage, poor parenting, or unconscious conflict (the dominant explanations in 1964) but reflects underlying personality dispositions — specifically, high extraversion and high neuroticism — that have a biological basis.
Eysenck’s theory rests on the concept of conditionability. He argues that conscience is not an innate moral faculty but a set of conditioned anxiety responses: children learn to avoid antisocial behavior because it has been paired (through punishment) with anxiety. But some individuals condition more slowly than others — specifically, extraverts (whose low cortical arousal makes them harder to condition) and those with high neuroticism (whose emotional instability disrupts the conditioning process). These individuals are more likely to engage in criminal behavior because they have not acquired the conditioned anxiety responses that constitute conscience.
The theory was controversial: it implied that criminal behavior had a significant genetic component (since personality dimensions are substantially heritable) and that social interventions (education, welfare, community development) would be less effective than biological ones (conditioning programs, pharmacological interventions). Critics accused Eysenck of biological determinism and of providing intellectual cover for punitive criminal justice policies.
Collecting Crime and Personality
First edition (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1964): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $30–$80
- Without jacket: $10–$25
- Revised edition (1977): $10–$20