Biography of Hans Eysenck

● Hans Eysenck was born in Germany but moved to England after turning 18 and spent
most of his working life there.
● He eventually went to school to earn a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University College
London in 1940 under the supervision of psychologist Cyril Burt, who is best-known for
his research on the heritability of intelligence.
● Eysenck was born on March 4, 1916
● He died on September 4, 1997
● His research interests were broad, but he is perhaps best known for his theories of
personality and intelligence.
● Eysenck's theory of personality focused on temperaments, which he believed were
largely controlled by genetic influences.1 He utilized a statistical technique known as
factor analysis to identify what he believed were the two primary dimensions of
personality: extraversion and neuroticism. He later added a third dimension known as
psychoticism.
● Eysenck was a hugely influential figure in psychology. At the time of his death in 1997,
he was the most-frequently cited psychologist in scientific journals.
● Despite his influence, Eysneck was also a controversial figure. His suggestion that
racial differences in intelligence were due to genetics rather than environment
generated a tremendous amount of pushback.
● During World War II, Eysenck worked as a research psychologist at Mill Hill Emergency
Hospital.
● He later founded the psychology department at the University of London Institute of
Psychiatry, where he worked until 1983. He served as Professor Emeritus at the school
until his death in 1997.
● He was also an extremely prolific writer.
● Over the course of his career, Eysenck published more than 75 books and over
1,600 journal articles. Prior to his death, he was the most frequently cited living
psychologist.2

Contributions to Psychology

● In addition to being one of the most famous psychologists, Eysenck was also one of the
most controversial.3 One of his earliest controversies revolved around a paper he wrote in
1952 on the effects of psychotherapy. In the paper, Eysenck reported that two-thirds of
therapy patients improved significantly or recovered within two years, regardless of
whether or not they received psychotherapy.4
● He was also a vocal critic of psychoanalysis, dismissing it as unscientific.
● The greatest controversy surrounding Eysenck was his view of the heritability
of intelligence, more specifically his view that racial differences in intelligence could
be partially attributed to genetic factors.5
● After one of his students was criticized for publishing a paper suggesting that genetics
were responsible for racial differences in intelligence, Eysenck defended him and later
published The IQ Argument: Race, Intelligence, and Education, which incited
considerable controversy and criticism. His 1990 autobiography took a more moderate
 view that ascribed greater importance to the role of environment and experience in
shaping intelligence.
● He also played a major role in establishing approaches to clinical training and
psychotherapy that were firmly rooted in empirical research and science.

Dimensions of Temperament

● Eysenck’s theory focused on temperament—innate, genetically based personality

differences.
● He believed personality is largely governed by biology, and he viewed people as
having two specific personality dimensions: extroversion vs. introversion and
neuroticism vs. stability.
● After collaborating with his wife and fellow personality theorist Sybil Eysenck, he added
a third dimension to this model: psychoticism vs. socialization. (Boundless, n.d.)

Model of Personality (introvert and extrovert)

● An extravert is commonly described as an outgoing, expressive person, but the

technical definition described by Eysenck is more complex.
● Extraversion is a combination of sociability, impulsiveness, frivolity, general activity,
and overt sexuality.
● According to Eysenck, the impulsiveness associated with extraversion is most likely
hereditary (a temperamental trait), whereas the sociability aspect of extraversion is
more likely to be influenced by one’s environment. (Why is it hereditary? – Since it
is a function of the reactivity of the autonomic nervous system, it is an inherited
characteristic.)
● Thus, perhaps, it is not surprising that Eysenck finds support for hereditary influences on
personality whereas others, like Cattell, find support for environmental influences.
Depending on how one designs their questions and experiments, the component traits
within a higher order factor can support different perspectives (Eysenck, 1982).
● According to his theory, people high on the trait of extroversion are sociable and
outgoing and readily connect with others, whereas people high on the trait of
introversion have a higher need to be alone, engage in solitary behaviors, and limit
their interactions with others. (Boundless, n.d.)

Neuroticism refers to one’s emotional stability, or lack thereof. Neuroticism raises the intensity
of emotional reactions. Individuals who measure high in neuroticism are more likely to suffer
from neuroses, but high neuroticism is not necessarily less desirable than low levels of
neuroticism.

It incorporates:

● mood swings
● poor emotional adjustment
● feelings of inferiority
● lack of social responsibility
● lack of persistence
 ● issues of trust vs. suspiciousness
● social shyness, hypochondria, and the
● lack of relaxed composure.

For example, aesthetic appreciation and creativity can benefit from an individual being highly
emotional. On the clearly negative side, high levels of neuroticism have routinely been found
in criminals, perhaps because whenever an individual has antisocial tendencies, a high level of
neuroticism enhances their fear/anxiety responses and functions as a powerful, albeit
dysfunctional, drive (Eysenck, 1977, 1982; Kendrick, 1981).

In the neuroticism/stability dimension, people high on neuroticism tend to be anxious; they

tend to have an overactive sympathetic nervous system with low stress, their bodies and
emotional state tend to go into a flight-or-fight reaction.

In contrast, people high on stability tend to need more stimulation to activate their flight-or-
fight reaction and are therefore considered more emotionally stable. (Boundless, n.d.) Cattell
also studied neuroticism, and his findings were very similar to those of Eysenck (Cattell &
Scheier, 1961).

Psychoticism was added to Eysenck’s theory well after identifying extraversion and neuroticism,
and it is the least clearly defined or heritable of the three superfactors. It incorporates traits of
dominance-leadership, dominance-submission, sensation seeking, and the lack of a
superego.

● Children who score high on a measure of psychoticism tend to have behavior

problems and learning difficulties, they become loners, skip school, commit crimes,
and are generally disliked by teachers and peers. Whether as children or as adults, they
do not typically benefit from traditional psychotherapies or counseling, as there tends to
be a paranoid, suspicious barrier. There is some evidence, however, for successful
treatment with intensive behavioral techniques. Interestingly, whether or not these
children become criminals as adults seems to depend on how they score on the other two
superfactors. High neuroticism seems to be the factor which makes juvenile delinquency
a habit that persists into a life of crime (S. Eysenck, 1997).
● In the psychoticism/socialization dimension, people who are high on psychoticism tend
to be independent thinkers, cold, nonconformist, impulsive, antisocial, and hostile.
● People who are high on socialization (often referred to as superego control) tend to
have high impulse control—they are more altruistic, empathetic, cooperative, and
conventional. (Boundless, n.d.)

The major strength of Eysenck’s model is that he was one of the first to make his approach
more quantifiable; it was therefore perceived to be more “legitimate,” as a common criticism
of psychological theories is that they are not empirically verifiable.

Eysenck proposed that extraversion was caused by variability in cortical arousal, with introverts
characteristically having a higher level of activity in this area than extroverts. He also
hypothesized that neuroticism was determined by individual differences in the limbic system, the
part of the human brain involved in emotion, motivation, and emotional association with
memory. Unlike Allport’s and Cattell’s models, however, Eysenck’s theory has been criticized
for being too narrow. (Boundless, n.d.)