Eysenck’s personality theory is considered a true paradigm, the strongest that psychology has offered to this day, this is one of the theories that best explain why each person has his own personality.
Eysenck’s personality theory considers that there are 3 main dimensions of traits or superfactors from which biopsychosocial prognostics can be made: a person’s levels of psychoticism, extraversion and neurosis are sufficient to make physiological, psychological and social predictions.
- Eysenck’s personality theory states that there are 3 main dimensions of traits for making predictions at the biopsychosocial level.
At the beginning of World War II, this Psychologist born in Germany was forced to emigrate to England. In London, he worked as an emergency psychologist at Mill Hill Emergency Hospital, where he was in charge of the army’s psychiatric treatment. Background, research, more than 700 published articles and personality studies guarantee a place among the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century.
He was deeply skeptical about the use of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in clinical cases; instead, he advocated behavioral therapy as the best treatment for mental disorders.
His approach is part of trait theory. That is, it considers that human behavior is determined by a number of attributes, these genetic traits are the foundation or basic units of personality because they predispose us to act in a certain way.
In addition, it assumes that these traits vary from individual to individual, are consistent in different situations and remain more or less stable over time. He also believes that by isolating these genetic traits, one can see the deeper structure of the human personality.
For this psychologist, our traits are influenced by genetics, the source of individual differences, of course, Eysenck has not ruled out other types of environmental influences or situations, meaning that these characteristics can be accentuated or mitigated when they come into contact with the environment.
For example, family interactions during childhood: the affection and communication that exists between parents and children can have a greater or lesser effect on their development, so their approach is biopsychosocial. That is, a mixture of biological, psychological and social factors as determinants of behavior.
This author considers that personality is prioritized on 4 different levels, at the bottom you will find specific answers, those that occur once and that may or may not be characteristics of the person; on a second level, the usual answers, the ones that happen. more often and in similar circumstances.
Third, common acts are categorized by characteristics, i. e. associations of related habits. Finally, at the top of the pyramid are the superfactors, which we will submerge below.
Based on these ideas, Hans Eysenck developed his theory into two factors, for this he relied on the results of the responses to his personality questionnaires, factor analysis is a statistical technique that reduces data and adds information in variables, in this case, it is about reducing behavior to a number of factors with common attributes , the superfactors. Each set of factors is grouped into a single dimension.
Eysenck identified 3 independent personality dimensions: psychoticism (P), extraversion (E) and neuroticism (N), so the model is called PEN, for this author these 3 superfactors are sufficient to adequately describe the personality.
Eysenck understands neuroticism as the highest degree of emotional instability, with this dimension he wants to explain why some people are more likely than others to suffer anxiety, hysteria, depression or obsession in different situations, defines them as those who react more often than others. and have difficulty returning to a normal level of emotional activity.
At the other end of the scale, there are emotionally stable, calm and just people who have a high degree of self-control.
People with higher extroversion scores have higher characteristics of sociability, impulsivity, disinhibition, vitality, optimism and ingenuity, while the more introverted show more signs of tranquility, passivity, poor sociability, reflexivity or pessimism.
However, Eysenck’s personality theory considers that the main difference between the two factors is physiological: his level of cortical arousal.
A person’s degree of psychoticism reflects their level of vulnerability to impulsive, aggressive, or une enthusiast behaviors. These people are often insensitive, inhuman, antisocial, violent, aggressive and extravagant. If your score is high, it’s related to several mental disorders, such as psychosis.
Unlike the other two dimensions, psychoticism has no opposite or opposite ends because it is a component present at different levels of the person.
Personality is one of the most interesting, studied and fundamental subjects of psychology, it has been studied in depth to explain why a person is as it is, one of the most important tools in this field is Eysenck’s personality theory, which has become a true paradigm In addition, at that time, it laid the foundation for scientific study of human personality and behavior.