Personality is a combination of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual . Personality is the entire mental organization of a human being at any stage of his development. It embraces every phase of human character: intellect, temperament, skill, morality, and every attitude that has been built up in the course of one’s life.” (Warren & Carmichael, 1930, p. 333).
Human personality is composed of a number of traits. Traits that form a particular person’s character, may bring aroud certain individuals to commit a crime. Studies have defined certain personality traits and disorders that lead to strange behaviour which come from biological genes or may develop from disorganized families and environment.
Four different personality theories have been identified to study the human behaviour of an individual. Such theories are the trait theory , psychoanalytical theory , behavioural and social learining theory and the humanistic theory.
Trait Theories
Trait theorists study personality as a predisposed nature factor and so, cannot be fixed throughout the individual’s life.
Human personality is composed of a number of traits. Personality traits are the actions, attitudes and behaviour that one pessesses in his character. Traits that form a particular person’s character, may bring aroud certain individuals to commit a crime.
Personality trait theorisits suck as Eysenck believe that criminal behaviour is the result of abnormal personlity types and came into being from particular traits. While he believed that learned habits are important, he felt that personality originated from genetic influence.
Eysenck’s PEN Model
Hans Eysenck(1916 – 1998), after studying some military psychiatric cases, identified three important dimensions of personality . He believed that these dimensions would explain the different behaviour pattern in one’s personality. Eysenck wanted to develop a model of personality based on traits that were inherited and had a solid physiological foundation. The three super traits that met these criteria, according to Eysenck, were extraversion-introversion (E), neuroticism-emotional stability (N), and psychoticism (P) (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985). There is good evidence that these three traits are inherited, as found by a massive study of 12,898 pairs of identical and fraternal twins.
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Extraverts according to Eysenck’s are sociable, lively, brave, impulsive, sensation-seeking and dominant ,unlike introverts which like to spend time alone and are quite. Those high on neuroticism tend to be anxious, bad-tempered, with guilt feeling and moody. They get depressed and experience many negative emotions. With high anxiety, scorers with high (N) tend to find difficulty in conditioning, and will result in aggressive behaviour.
After studying individuals suffering from mental illness, Eysenck added a third personality trait dimension he called psychoticism .People with high (P) have a tendency to be aggressive, self-centred, impulsive, antisocial, and lack in empathy for others. They tend to act quickly without thinking, and fail to see things from the perspective of other people. They can also be insensitive and carless of others and have difficulty dealing with reality and may be antisocial.
Eysenck states that high extraverts, neurotics and psochotics are likely to engage in criminal activities. Criminal behaviour can be seen in people with high (E) and (N) where individuals look for excitement (E) while having disregard of the law (N) High neuroticism makes people more persistent and crime becomes a routine that is reinforced. Eysenck believes that the trait of psychoticism difers criminals to non-criminals. (P) is highly genetic and indivuals with high (P) are most likely to engage in violent criminal acts. Many trait of psychoticism may be linked to antisocial behavour.
The main quality of an individual with antisocial personality disorder is that they completely ignore the opinions of others and the rules of society feeling guilt-free of there wrong-doing actions. These are criminal personality traits, and psychopathic criminals, who usually are engage in killings, exhibit a highly form of antisocial behavior
Disorders
Disorders can be linked to more serious personality traits. Individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) fail to focus and give attention to anything for a set amount of time . Hyperactivity-impulsivity and lack of concentration are said to have a high factor in antisocial behaviour, a behavioural trait found in many violent criminals.
Individuals with the characteristics of Conduct Disorder (CD) may be involved in assaults, physcial fights, arson, stealing and disobeying. Individuals detected with this disorder reveal neuropsychological defects which affect the IQ level, resulting with weak language processing and poor memory. This difficulty in understanding may result in the child being reckless and act on their own will, since they won’t understand what is going on around them.
The Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD) is characterized by aggressiveness and rebelliousness and can affect the child much worse when he/she grows older.
Pyscoanalytical Theory
Psycoanaytical theorists focus deeper in what drives and motivates deviant behaviour in personality. They focus on the different behaviour pattern in people’s unconsious minds.
Freud’s ig ego and superego
Sigmund Freud believed that one can understand human personality by examining early chidhood experiences. Traumatic experiences , can affect behaviour even if the individual isn’t consious of the affect. Freud developed the psycoanalytical theory to study the type of unusual behaviour were he argued that individual personalities have three primary factors, which strongly affect one’s behaviour pattern. The id is thaught to be the immature part of ourselves. It controls the basic insticts and focuses of selfish urges and desires. It functions with the ‘pleasure principle’ to constitantly look for satisfaction and minimize pain. The environment will not meet every need or desire and so, part of the id separates and becomes the ego. The ego is the rational mind, it is the system of thinking, planning , problem solving and deciding . It develops to control the impulsive desires of the id. The superego then, acts as a judge of the ego being the guiding moral conscience.
Traumatic experiences during early childhood such as physical, sexual and verbal abuse can prevent the ego and superego from developing properly and therefore the child will be unable to cope with the ones around him. Therefore deviance is viewed as the product of an uncontrollable id, a faulty ego, or an underdeveloped superego.
Some offenders, like psycopathic serial killers are likely to have an id-dominated personality losing total control of their ego, and seeking gratification without any care for others .
Life – Death Instincts
Within the Id, Freud argued that there are two primary instincts ; the Eros, the instinct for life or pleasure drive and the Thanatos, the death or aggression instinct. Freud believed that each individual has an uncounscious wish to die and ”Destructive acts such as arson, fist fights, murder, war and even masochism were outward expressions of the death instincts” (R.Shaffer, 1946, p. 43)
According to Freud, the life-death instinct fight each other, and while having an unbalaced relationship their conflict and interaction is deteremental to their development in life. With this said , further analyses of the effects can result into destructive impulses, that may be turned against the individual himself (suicide) or external target (homicide)
Rape is another example of an extreme expression of the death instinct in that it involves aggression towards the victim, and represtents a destructive combination of life and death instincts.
Therefore, “Crime is a manifestation of feelings of oppression and people’s inability to develop the proper psychological defense and rationales to keep these feelings under control ( Siegel, 2005, p. 113)
Behaviourist and Social Learning Theory
Learning theories try to develop behaviour in a way that can be studied scientifically. Behavioural personality theorists deny the idea that personality is inherited, but rather it is a result of all their past experiences and learned behaviours . All behaviour is obtained as a result of condition which happens after one interacts with his/her environment.
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Operant Conditioning
B.F Skinner (1904 -1990) denied that emotions and the mind play a role in determining one’s behaviour but argued that it was the reinforcements experiences through the process of communicating with the environment that influence how one behaves. He believed in the concept of operant conditioning: by manipulating punishments and rewards to an individual each time an action is carried out until the subject links the action with pleasure or pain. This is said to give a full understanding of human behaviour and how it affects the development of personality.
The operant conditioning theory states that individuals choose to behave in a particular way due to an effect of a kind of behaviourur experienced in his past. Skinner stated that personality is shaped by the influence of a reinforcement as a routine within the environment and that individuals will therefore behave in ways that are most likely to produce the expected rewards deriving from the reinforcement of their behaviour .If behavior is monitored and corrected in early childhood, these individuals will less likely grow up being tempted to do an illegal act , understanding what is right and what is wrong. Therefore behavior is learned and can be strengthened by receiving positive reinforcement. Example – Each time a child commits an act and is punished for it , the fear in the child tends to become associated with the act . After the child has been punished several times for the same act, they feel fear and this fear tends to stop them from committing it again.
For the behaviourists, observational behaviour is the most appropriate way to investigating the mental processes of an individual’s pattern of behaviour. Criminal behavior is therefore caused by the reaction to environmental motivation. For example – An aggressive criminal may act the way he does because he has grown up observing that act in his own family. If the parents are abusive within the household, the child can most likely grow as an agressively, abusive criminal himself. Ultimately, the environment the individual grew up with, made him/her think that the behaviour he/she was observing and is now engaging in is mentally correct.
Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
This observational manner is also argued in Bandura’s social learning theory which also states that people learn from the ones around them by observing, imitating and as dealt in the behaviourist theory : reinforceing. Bandura claimed that there was more to learning than just direct reinforcements in learning. He thought that people were able to learn by observing other people’s actions. This was called observational learning or imitating.
Civilized observational learning can help control and exclude unwanted behaviour from children and develop a decent personality. Children growing up watching violent movies on TV, video games and lack exemplary role models such as poor family environment and neighbourhood, can be at high risk of engaging into violent crimes as they grow up.
The Bobo Doll Experiment
Albert Bandura had demonstrated an experiment in 1961, to try and add proof to his belief that human behavior is learned. He designed the Bobo Doll Experiment, trying to prove that if 36 female and male children between the age of 3-6 years were to witness an aggressive demonstration by an adult, they would most likely imitate their behavior.
This experiment consisted of three groups. The control group, those who would not observe an adult , just the doll . The second group, who would observe an adult showing aggressive behaviour towards the doll and the third group who would observe normal behaviour from the adult towards the doll.
After observing the adult, the children were allowed to play with this doll and after examining their behaviour, conclusions showed that there were three measures of imitation that were quite similar to the behaviour of the adult – the imitation of physical agression, the imitation of verbal agression and the imitation of the non-agressive normal behaviour. The group who saw the adult act aggressively to the doll replicated the behaviour while the other two groups did no harm.
This small experiment showed that children do imitate the adult model and if violence is taking place, the children would more likely to believe that this behaviour is normal and repeat this behaviour themselves.
umanistic Approach
Humanists felt humans have more control over their responses. Humanistics are concerned in how people’s behaviours can be influenced by their emotions and thoughts. This approach is very subjective and emphasize mostly on personal growth and self-actualization(develop one’s full potential). . The elementary belief of humanism is that people are born good and that mental and social problems result from deviations from this natural tendency.
Humanist brings out a more optimistic approach to the behaviour of the individual. They focus on humans` feelings of self-acceptance, self-esteem and personal charge to identify and explain personality and differences in personal behaviour (Burger, 2008, p. 5).
Carl Roger’s Self- Concept Theory
People have their own responsibility in how they behave. In contrast to Freud’s psychoanalytical view, Carl Rogers(1902- 1987) believes that humans have the ability to make free choices are aware of feelings and and have the power to change and develop.
Rogers believed that childhood experiences influences whether one will become self-actualied allowing them and realise their potential and change. He argued that the self-concept , a person’s awarenesss of who they are is the primary element of human personality. According to Rogers, people get knocked down from discovering themselves by the weight placed on them by other people such as teachers who judge harshly, parents who lack loving their child and peers who prevent their friends from becoming their true selves.
One of the primary function of the self, is the development of self-esteem which means liking and accepting oneself. Self esteem in early teenage life is also associated to having better physical and mental health, less criminal behaviour and greater success in adulthood.
Carl Rogers believed that the cure for human disorders lay in what he called unconditional. It is the complete acceptance by other people, regardless of their behaviour. Those raised in this environment have the opportunity to fully actualize themselves. In this way children will value themselves as having essential worth. Yet parents or other adult models should correct unwanted behaviour without damaging their child’s self esteem. Another thing that we value is positive self-regard, which is: self-esteem, self-worth, a positive self-image. We achieve this positive self-regard by experiencing the positive regard others show us over our years of growing up. For example – An individual with a violent past and prone to starting fights is recognized to be influenced by the dangerous neighbourhood he had grew up in, and not a reflection of his inherited personality. Through unconditional positive regard, the individual is able to recognize his self-worth and ultimatly change his behaviour.
Those raised in an environment of conditional positive regard is accepting an individual only if their self-concept lives up to certain expectations of others. Such as being well-mannered, quiet and confident. This existence of these conditions to worth can lead to feelings of worthlessness and failure and struggle. Self-acceptance is weakened and they feel strangers to themselves and can result into personality breakdown.
Every individual has a need for positive regard which remains active throughout our lives. We all need love. acceptance, respect and affection especially from important people such as our parents. Only through unconditional positive regard can a child achieve their full potential. Yet, everyone struggles at some point in time and not everyone succeeds. We lose the ability to grow and make correct judgments when we live with critical people or when society tries to shape us into something that we are not.
Conclusion
Psychologists have struggled for many years with defining something as difficult and mysterious as personality and after evaluating the four theories of personality, a complete definition of personality should include inner qualities as well as the effects of the qualities on the outside world.
Pervin (1996, p.414. pg.3)said that “.. Like the body, personality consists of both structures and processes and reflects both nature (genes) and nurture (experience).” B = F (P.E). Where Behaviour is the Function of Personality and Environment. (According to Lewin’s Interactionist Approach)
Therefore, inherited genes when combined with particular environmental conditions can result in a catastrophic birth of a criminal.
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