Hans Eysenck was a German-English psychologist well known for his theories on personality . He has gone down in history as one of the most influential figures in modern psychology and his theories are still being discussed and used by psychologists and other experts in human behaviour.

In this article we review the life of this psychologist from a very brief biography of Hans Eysenck , detailing some characteristics of his life and work.

Hans Eysenck: biography of one of the fathers of modern psychology

Hans Eysenck was born on March 4, 1916 in Berlin, Germany. He grew up and lived in Berlin until 1934, when he was forced to take refuge first in France and then in the United Kingdom by the Nazi regime.

His parents were actors, who, when separated and faced with the conditions of the country, moved to France. Eysenck grew up with his maternal grandmother, Frau Werner, with whom he had a free education full of intellectual and cultural stimuli. He quickly stood out as a good student and even a good athlete.

Finally he had to emigrate and it was in London where he began to study psychology (at the University of London). In the same city he worked as a clinical psychologist and even held management positions at the Institute of Psychiatry.

Hans Eysenck is credited with having built one of the most solid personality paradigms in the history of psychology. Some even consider him “the father of psychology”.

Your areas of work and research

While he was a student, Eysenck participated in different meetings and reviews of theories about intelligence. Together with some American intellectuals, also developed therapy options other than psychodynamics, which was the most popular at the time.

He also realized that psychology as a science was second only to psychiatry. Eysenck remained interested in claiming the status of the former and seeking cooperation between the two.

In the same sense he remained critical of the diagnoses made by psychiatry . He saw many contradictions and difficulties in defending them theoretically. From these experiences he developed his own model of personality, recovering many of the approaches of philosophy and more classical psychology.

Beyond measuring personality, he insisted on the value of knowing it, and interested in solving the problem of the taxonomy used in psychiatry, Eysenck maintained that personality does not occur in the normality/neurosis/psychosis continuum, but that the dimensions that best represent this are neuroticism and psychoticism .

From this he conducted studies with many of the people he worked with as a clinical psychologist, people who had some psychiatric diagnosis and people who did not. After analyzing the data, he proposed two key factors for personality: neuroticism and extraversion.

Years later and based on new studies, add a new dimension: psychoticism. Finally, I present a model organized hierarchically in four levels that go from personality types and their traits, to the specific responses that correspond to each one. This work gave shape to what is known as the PEN model of personality .

From personality to intelligence

Through his studies, Eysenck developed the famous psychotic-extraversion-neuroticism personality model, with biological factors for each, that is, highlighting the role of genetic inheritance in personality development. For example, argued that psychological differences and their hereditary determinants can be contrasted empirically .

This was what finally led him to develop research on issues related to personality, but that go a little further, such as intelligence, creativity, the relationship between genes and culture, criminality, sexuality, the relationship between personality and disease or addiction, among others.

Many of his studies on IQ and its relationship to cultural systems received much criticism. For example, his theories have been used both to justify and refute racial dynamics.

His latest studies focused on the analysis of creativity and its relationship with biological factors. And his personality model has been adapted to numerous psychometric tests to evaluate both intelligence and personality traits. They are currently used in the clinical, educational, vocational and occupational areas.

Outstanding works

Among his most important works are Personality Structure and Measurement from 1969, The Structure of Human Personality from 1970, Genes, Culture and Personality from 1989.

On the specific relationship between intelligence, personality and biology, some of his most important works are The Biological Basis of Personality from 1967 and Personality, Genetics and Behaviour from 1982.

Bibliographic references:

  • Schmidt, V., Oliván, M.E., L, F. et al (2008). Hans Jürgen Eysenck. Life and work of one of the most influential scientists in the history of psychology. Avances en Psicología Latinoamericana/Bogotá (Colombia), 26(2): 304-317.