With disorderly behaviour in young people on the rise, there are many studies which investigate the influential factors for this behaviour. This essay will compare and contrast both psychological and sociological approaches to studying this issue. Firstly looking at theories from a psychological point of view, which focuses on what causes an person to act in an anti social way, looking at things such as personality and family background. Then taking a different route the essay will explore why the behaviour is viewed as delinquent and if it is society that is the problem more so than the individual.
1947 Hans Eysenck created a theory which implied that criminal and deviant behaviour stemmed from certain personality traits which can be reduced to just two dimensions, extraversion and neuroticism. This is sometimes called ‘e’ and ’n’. In a later version of his theory the letter ‘p’ was added, which stood for psychoticism. To measure this in an individual, a simple ‘yes or no’ questionnairre was used. Eysenck expected that most people would fall somewhere in the middle of the scale. However he found that criminals would score at the higher end of each scale. The accuracy of this however was …show more content…
Becker states that all societies have a different opinion on what is considered to be criminal. In some countries hate crimes are not considered criminal or deviant. He also points out that sometimes the act of killing is not always a crime. It can all come down to who commits the act, for example there can be exceptions if it was done out of authority by an individual in the police or by soldiers. He comments also on how a societies view can change dramatically over time. For example in the UK up until 1967 it was illegal for two consenting male adult to engage in any homosexual
1947 Hans Eysenck created a theory which implied that criminal and deviant behaviour stemmed from certain personality traits which can be reduced to just two dimensions, extraversion and neuroticism. This is sometimes called ‘e’ and ’n’. In a later version of his theory the letter ‘p’ was added, which stood for psychoticism. To measure this in an individual, a simple ‘yes or no’ questionnairre was used. Eysenck expected that most people would fall somewhere in the middle of the scale. However he found that criminals would score at the higher end of each scale. The accuracy of this however was …show more content…
Becker states that all societies have a different opinion on what is considered to be criminal. In some countries hate crimes are not considered criminal or deviant. He also points out that sometimes the act of killing is not always a crime. It can all come down to who commits the act, for example there can be exceptions if it was done out of authority by an individual in the police or by soldiers. He comments also on how a societies view can change dramatically over time. For example in the UK up until 1967 it was illegal for two consenting male adult to engage in any homosexual