but also in the work of other investigators using different data-gathering meth-
ods (Eysenck & Long, 1986). Eysenck reasoned that this cross-cultural consis-
tency would be highly improbable if biological factors were not largelyresponsible for personality.
Third, Eysenck pointed to the results of several studies indicating that ge-
netics plays an important role in determining a person ’s level on each of the
three personality dimensions. As presented in detail in Chapter 10, research
strongly suggests that each of us inherited a predisposition to be introverted
or extraverted.
Hans J. Eysenck
1916 –1997
If heredity plays a large role
in determining personality,we might say that HansEysenck was born to be thecenter of attention in
whatever field he entered.Eysenck was born inGermany into a family ofcelebrities. His father,
Eduard Eysenck, was an accomplished actor andsinger, something of a matinee idol in Europe. Hismother, whose stage name was Helga Molander, was asilent film star. They planned a glamorous career in theentertainment field for Hans, who at age 8 had a small
role in a motion picture. However, like manyHollywood marriages today, Eysenck ’s parents
divorced when he was young (only to marry other
show business people later). Most of Eysenck ’s early
years were spent with his grandmother in Berlin.
Upon graduating from public school in Berlin, the
rebellious Eysenck decided not only to pursue a career
in physics and astronomy, much to his family ’s
displeasure, but to do so abroad. After a year in France,he moved to England, where he eventually completedhis PhD at the University of London. Like so manyothers at the time, Eysenck left Germany in 1934 inpart to escape the rise of the Nazis. “Faced with the
choice of having to join the Nazi storm troops if Iwanted to go to a university, ”he wrote, “I knew that
there was no future for me in my unhappy homeland ”
(Eysenck, 1982, p. 289). Because he was a Germancitizen, Eysenck was prohibited from joining the Britishmilitary and spent World War II working in anemergency hospital. Following the war, Eysenck
returned to the University of London, where his longcareer produced 79 books and more than 1,000 journalarticles (Farley, 2000).
Although he never pursued the career in show
business his parents desired, he did not avoid the
public ’s eye. Eysenck appeared to seek out and dive
right into some of the biggest controversies inpsychology. In 1952 he published a paper challengingthe effectiveness of psychotherapy. He was especiallycritical of psychoanalysis, pointing out that empiricalevidence at the time showed psychoanalysis to be nobetter than receiving no treatment at all. Morecontroversy occurred when he stated that individualdifferences in intelligence are largely inherited. As aresult, Eysenck was sometimes unfairly associated with
those who proposed inherent racial differences inintelligence. In 1980 Eysenck published a book arguing
that the case for cigarettes as a cause of health
problems was not as strong as many people claimed.Critics were particularly harsh when they discoveredthat some of this work had been sponsored byAmerican tobacco companies.
This lifelong combative style caused one
biographer to call Eysenck the “controversialist in the
intellectual world ”(Gibson, 1981, p. 253). Eysenck
would no doubt have enjoyed this title. “From the days
of opposition to Nazism in my early youth, through my
stand against Freudianism and projective techniques, to
my advocacy of behavior therapy and genetic studies,to more recent issues, I have usually been against theestablishment and in favor of the rebels, ”he wrote.
“[But] I prefer to think that on these issues the majority
were wrong, and I was right” (1982, p. 298).Reproduced by permission from The H. J. Eysenck
Memorial Fund/University of London228 CHAPTER 9 The Biological Approach