Personality, Conditioning, and Antisocial Behavior (From Personality Theory, Moral Developments and Criminal Behavior, P 51-80, 1983, William Slaufer and James M Day, ed. - See NCJ-91449)

• NCJ Number: 91452
• Author(s): H J Eysenck
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 30 pages
• Sale Source: Lexington Books
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study portrays the development of personality through socio-biological conditioning, and implications are drawn for the causes of antisocial behavior and efforts to counter such behavior.

Abstract

Research supports the contention that differences between persons' conditionability, associated with the differential content of the conditioning process and frequency of conditioning contingencies, adequately explains the observed differences in individual antisocial behavior. The same factors can explain the recent increases in antisocial behavior and criminal activity. The general growth in permissiveness in homes, schools, and courts has produced a significant reduction in the number of conditioning contingencies to which children are exposed. Consequently, they develop with much weaker consciences and are more vulnerable to engagement in criminal and antisocial behavior. This study supports the details of this hypothesis through a review of relevant research. Research which involves efforts to apply particular conditioning structures to deviant behavior is also reviewed to demonstrate how such behavior can be modified through the development of a conditioning process designed to produce normative behaviors. It is advised that the findings of such studies have been inconclusive but do provide sufficient support for the conditioning theory to warrant further research and place it alongside other theories as a contender for explaining aspects of human behavior. Graphic data and 51 references are provided.