Hans Eysenck

Lore & Background

Eysenck was born in Berlin to a film star mother and actor father, and was raised by his maternal grandmother, a Jewish convert to Catholicism who was deported and died in a concentration camp. He moved permanently to England in the 1930s due to opposition to the Nazi party, received his PhD in 1940 from University College London under Sir Cyril Burt, and became Professor of Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London from 1955 to 1983. He was a founding member of the World Cultural Council and founding editor of the journal Personality and Individual Differences, writing about 80 books and over 1,600 journal articles.

Eysenck's research included claims that certain personality types had elevated risk of cancer and heart disease, and work on IQ scores and race first published in 1971, which were significant sources of controversy. Scholars have identified errors and suspected data manipulation in his work, and large replications have failed to confirm his findings. An enquiry on behalf of King's College London found papers coauthored with Ronald Grossarth-Maticek 'incompatible with modern clinical science', with 26 joint papers considered suspect; 14 papers were retracted in 2020, and over 60 statements of concern were issued. David Marks and Rod Buchanan argued that 87 publications by Eysenck should be retracted.

Eysenck was an atheist and a signer of the Humanist Manifesto. He died of a brain tumour in a London hospice in 1997. His second wife, psychologist Sybil B. G. Eysenck, with whom he collaborated for many years, died in December 2020.

Reader's Guide

Hans Eysenck's significance lies in his major contributions to the modern scientific theory of personality, particularly his dimensional model based on factor-analytic research and biogenetic variation. However, his legacy is deeply contested due to controversies surrounding his research on race and intelligence and on personality and disease. Scholars have identified errors and suspected data manipulation in his work, and large replications have failed to confirm his claims. The retraction of 14 papers in 2020 and over 60 statements of concern from scientific journals underscore the severity of the issues. His work on IQ and race, funded in part by the Pioneer Fund, an organization promoting scientific racism, and his research on cancer-prone personality, funded via a law firm acting for the tobacco industry, have further tarnished his reputation. While he was once the most cited living psychologist, the reliability of his findings is now widely questioned, making his legacy a cautionary tale about the intersection of science, controversy, and data integrity.

Did You Know?

• Eysenck was the most frequently cited living psychologist in peer-reviewed journals at the time of his death.
• An enquiry found 26 papers coauthored with Ronald Grossarth-Maticek 'incompatible with modern clinical science'; 14 were retracted in 2020.
• Eysenck was punched in the face by a protester during a talk at the London School of Economics over his views on race and IQ.
• He was a founding member of the World Cultural Council in 1981.