The Place of Individual Differences in a Scientific Psychology

Abstract

All three sets of comments make points which deserve a reply, but in a limited space not all can be answered in detail. In a rather paradoxical way, the one set of comments both easiest and most difficult to answer is that by Gray. He draws attention to some of the very real difficulties which confront my theory of conscience, that is, the notion that conscience develops through a process of Pavlovian conditioning and that the results are therefore determined to a large extent by the personality of the child in question. In my book, Crime and Personality (1977a), I have made a number of predictions based on this and related hypotheses, to the effect that antisocial behavior should be positively correlated with psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism; by and large, these predictions have been found supported by research not only in the western world, but also in communist countries and in the third world. So far, one might say, so good; however, not all empirical data have supported the hypothesis, and there are many theoretical difficulties, some of which have been pointed out by Gray.