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38 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What did Eysenck propose?
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- Theory of personality based on idea that all personalities are made up of certain traits. - The level that you have of those traits determines your personality. - Each trait has biological basis which is innate & come about through the type of nervous system inherited. - Eysenck Personality Questionnaire developed = psychological test to assess individual's personality. - Test locates respondents along different dimensions to determine their personality type. - Criminal personality = high scores on all 3 dimensions. |
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Outline the trait Extraversion and refer to the biological basis & how this trait links to offending behaviour. (Eysenck) |
- Characterised as sociable, impulsive, expressive & risk taking, easily bored. - Determined by overall level of arousal in a person's central & autonomic nervous system. - Those w/ high levels of extraversion are under-aroused & need more external stimulation compared to introverts. - Extraverts seek external stimulation to increase cortisol arousal & so will engage in dangerous risk taking behaviours. |
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Outline the trait Neuroticism and refer to the biological basis & how this trait links to offending behaviour. (Eysenck) |
- Characterised by nervousness, anxiety & obsessiveness. - Have -ve emotions. - Determined by level of stability in sympathetic nervous system: how much a person responds to situations of threat. - Neurotic person is slightly unstable, reacts quickly & behaviour is unpredictable. - Prone to over react to situations of threat which could explain criminal activity especially in emotionally charged situations. |
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Outline the trait Psychoticism and refer to the biological basis & how this trait links to offending behaviour. (Eysenck) |
- Characterised by egocentric, aggressive & impulsive behaviour. - Not concerned about the welfare of others. - High testosterone - Characterised as cold, unemotional & prone to aggression |
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Strength of Eysenck's Theory of Criminal Personality: Supporting Evidence
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- Eysenck compared 2070 male prisoners' scores on EPQ w/ 2422 male controls. - On measures of psychoticism, extraversion & neuroticism prisoners recorded higher scores than controls. - Supports Eysenck's predictions of what constitutes criminal personality. - However, Farrington et al reviewed several studies & found offenders tended to score high on P measures but not for E & N. - Very little evidence of consistent differences in EEG measures between extraverts, which casts doubt on biological basis. - Suggests link between personality traits & criminal behaviour is unclear. |
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Limitations of Eysenck's Theory of Criminal Personality: Single Criminal Type
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- Digman's Five Factor Model of personality suggests that alongside E & N, there are additional dimensions of Openness, Agreeableness & Conscientiousness. - Multiple combos are available & therefore a high E & N score does not mean offending is inevitable. - Other psychologists believe personality is not consistent & changes depending on company & situation. - Means the notion of a criminal personality is flawed as people do not simply have 1 fixed personality type, criminal or otherwise. |
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Strength of Eysenck's Theory of Criminal Personality: Practical Application
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- Traits like psychoticism will be found in criminals as they are aggressive & lack empathy. Lacks explanatory power. - E.G. Eysenck's theory says rapists are extraverts, neurotic & psychotic but doesn't tell us why they commit crimes. Useful directions when it comes to preventing crime. Detectable in childhood. - May be possible to modify the socialisation experiences of high-risk individuals so they don't develop into offenders. - Could lead to interventions based on parenting or early treatment for delinquency = may be great practical benefit in reducing criminal behaviour. |
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Limitation of Eysenck's Theory of Criminal Personality: Methodological Issue
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Simple closed questionnaires which offer a "forced choice between an answer which is high in the trait or low. -Issue b/c they are asked to select traits that best apply to them, but their responses may not represent 'reality'. - May inaccurately label them as having/not having a criminal personality. - Offenders are often used in sample, social desirability bias may occur |
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Outline Moral Reasoning as a Cognitive Explanation of Offending Behaviour.
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- Developed by Kohlberg - Constructed from interviews of boys and girls about reasons for their moral choices. - Constructed a stage theory of moral development, each stage represents a more advanced form of moral understanding. - 3 levels of moral reasoning: pre-conventional, conventional & post-conventional. - People progress through stages as a consequence of biological maturity & also as having an opportunity to discuss & develop their thinking. - Higher stages = more sophisticated the reasoning an individual has. |
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How does Moral Reasoning Link to Offending Behaviour. ( Cognitive)
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- Pre-conventional stage = criminal b/c characterised by need to avoid punishments & gain rewards(e.g. money, increased respect etc.) , less mature & child-like reasoning. - Supported by Chandler who found that offenders are more egocentric & display poorer social perspective-taking skills than non-offending peers. - Those who reason @ higher levels tend to sympathise more w/ rights of others & exhibit more conventional behaviours (honesty, generosity & non-violence). |
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Strength of Kohlberg's level of moral reasoning (cognitive): Supporting Research
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- Palmer & Hollin: link between Kohlberg's level of moral reasoning &criminal behaviour. - Compared moral reasoning between non-delinquents & delinquents. - All pp's given a Socio-Measure Short Form which contained 11 moral dilemma-related items. - Convicted delinquent group showed less mature moral reasoning that non-delinquent group, operating @ lower levels of moral development such as hedonistic gain. - Therefore illustrates clear differences in moral reasoning between delinquents & non-delinquents & is consistent w/ Kohlberg's predictions. |
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Limitation of Kohlberg's level of moral reasoning (cognitive): Cannot be Applied to all Crimes
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- Thornton & Reid used Kohlberg's moral dilemmas w/ criminal sample & measured results again using his 'Stages of Moral Development'. - Found pre-conventional moral reasoning tends to be associated w/ crimes relating to financial gain (robbery) & evident in crimes where offender though they could evade punishment. - On the other hand, impulsive crimes (assault) didn't relate to any level of reasoning & wasn't a factor of committing a crime. - Suggests level of moral reasoning may depend on the kind of offence committed & therefore questions generalisability of Kohlberg's theory. |
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What are Cognitive Distortions?
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- Errors or biases in people's info processing system characterised by faulty thinking. - Ways that reality has become twisted so what is perceived no longer represents what is actually true. - Distortions allow offenders to deny or rationalise their behaviour. |
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What are 2 examples of cognitive distortions?
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1. Hostile Attribution Bias 2. Minimalisation |
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Outline Hostile Attribution Bias as a Cognitive Distortion.
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- Tendency towards violent behaviour often associated w/ tendency to misinterpret the actions of other people. - Offenders assume others are being confrontation when they are not. - Misread non-aggressive cues (e.g. being looked @) & this may trigger a disproportionate, often violent response. - Blame the victim. - Schonenberg & Justye presented 55 violent offenders w/ images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions. - When compared to non-aggressive control group, violent offenders = significantly more likely to perceive images as angry & hostile. |
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Outline Minimalisation as a Cognitive Distortion.
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- Consequences of a situation are under-exaggerated. - Offender may deny or downplay the seriousness of the offence. - Helps offender accept the consequences of their own behaviour & means -ve emotions can be reduced. - Studies suggest that individuals who commit sexual offences are prone to minimalisation. - Barbaree found among 26 incarcerated rapists, 54% denied committing an offence & further 40% minimised the harm to the victim, downplaying the seriousness of the offence. |
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Strength of Cognitive Distortions: Practical Applications
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- Beneficial in the treatment of criminal behaviour. - Dominant approach in the rehabilitation of sex offenders in CBT. - This encouragers them to accept what they have done & establish a less distorted view of their actions. - Studies suggest reduced incidence of denial & minimalisation in therapy is highly correlated w/ reduced risk of reoffending & is a key feature in ager management. - Heller et al worked w/ group of young men, mainly from disadvantaged groups of Chicago. - Used cognitive behavioural techniques to reduce cognitive distortions such as judgement & decision making errors. - Pp's who attended 13 hr session had 44% reduction in arrests compared to control group. - Highlights practical application of understanding cognitive distortions in order to treat criminals. |
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Limitation of Cognitive Distortions: Alternative Explanations |
- Good @ describing criminal mind but less successful when it comes to explaining it. - Although may be useful when predicting reoffending, they tend not to give us much insight into why offender committed crime in the first place. - In contrast, Psychodynamic explanations such as Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis proposed LT separations between mother & child could have LT emotional consequences. - 1 LT consequence of separation = affectionless psychopathy which is characterised by lack of normal affection, shame or sense of responsibility. - Also deals w/ role of emotional factors & how they affect criminal behaviour which cognitive explanation fails to account for. - Alternative explanations could therefore explain reasons why offending behaviour occurs. |
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Who proposed the Differential Association Theory (DAT) & what did he suggest?
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- Proposed by Sutherland. - Suggests individuals learn values, attitudes, techniques & motives for criminal behaviour through association & interaction w/ different people. |
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In Differential Association who is criminal behaviour learned from?
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- Interactions w/ family & peers. - Also from wider neighbourhood. - The degree to which local community support or opposes criminal involvement determines differences in crime are from 1 are to another. |
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In Differential Association what is learned?
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- Pro-criminal attitudes. - Learn which types of crime are acceptable w/in their community & also worth doing. - May learn particular techniques for committing crimes, e.g.: breaking into a house or hotwiring a car. |
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In Differential Association how is criminal behaviour learned?
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- Likely that role models, who individual identifies w/, provides opportunities to model criminal behaviours. - If RMs are successful in criminal activities, this provides vicarious reinforcement. - Child may be directly reinforced (by operant conditioning) for deviant behaviours through praise = +ve reinforcement. - Also explains why individuals imprisoned for minor offences often reoffend when released. - Spending time w/ other criminals make them likely to learn further criminal behaviours. |
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What does Differential Association Theory suggest is possible to mathematically predict?
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- How likely it is that individual will commit crime if we have knowledge of frequency, intensity & duration of which they are exposed to deviant norms & values.
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Strength of Differential Association Theory: Supporting Evidence
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- Farrington: longitudinal survey of 411 males from age 8-50 (w/c, deprived & from inner S. London). - 42% were convicted of at least 1 crime. - Most important childhood 'risk factors' for later reoffending were measures of family criminality, daring or risk taking, low school attainment, poverty & poor attainment. - Supports idea that children learn criminal behaviour through interactions w/ RMs, e.g. family, peers & wider community. |
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Strength of Differential Association Theory: Explanatory Power
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- Has ability to account for crime w/in all sectors of society. - Whilst Sutherland recognised some types of crime (burglary) were clustered w/in inner city w/c communities, also the case that some crimes more prevalent amongst affluent groups of society. - Sutherland interested in 'white collar' or corporate crimes (fraud) & how this may be a feature of m/c social groups who share deviant norms & values. - Important as it change people's views about origin of criminal behaviour as theory accounts for all types of people not just juveniles & w/c, often described in theories of crime. - Highlights major contribution that differential association theory has had on explaining offending behaviour. |
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Limitation of Differential Association Theory: Psychology as a Science
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- Despite Sutherland's promise to provide mathematical framework to predict future offending behaviour, DAT suffers from being difficult to test. - Hard to see how # of pro-criminal attitudes a person has, or is exposed to, could be objectively measured. - W/out being able to measure these, difficult to know @ what point offending behaviour starts & person becomes a criminal. - Theory doesn't provide a satisfactory solution to issue, therefore undermining its scientific credibility. |
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Limitation of Differential Association Theory: Individual Differences (Environmental Determinism)
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- People can be independent, ration & individually motivated so notion that being a criminal is based on environment is problematic. - B/c not everyone who is influenced by people around them exposing them to criminal influences, doesn't go on to commit crime. - Theory doesn't take into account personality traits that might affects a person's susceptibility to environmental influences. - E.G. Eysencks's theory of personality proposed people w/ high extroversion & neuroticism had nervous systems that were difficult to condition & more likely to act antisocially. - Therefore suggests personality, socialisation & learned behaviour may all influence criminality so is essential we take individual differences into account. |
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List differences between Differential Association Theory and the Biological Explanation.
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- D: Criminal Behaviour is learnt (nurture) vs B: Criminal behaviour is inherited (nature). - D: Less scientific (difficult to test & measure) vs B: More Scientific (Pet scans) - D: Doesn't explain violent crimes like rape & murder where there are no RMs vs B: Explains violent crimes. - D: Better @ explaining why criminals released are likely to reoffend &explain escalating criminal behaviour vs. B: Although it can explain reoffending, cant explain escalating reoffending. - D: Doesn't blame the individual, more social factors vs. B: Doesn't look @ dysfunctional environment, just dysfunctional people. |
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Outline the Maternal Deprivation Theory as a Psychodynamic Explanation for Offending Behaviour. |
- Bowlby was interested in impact of early childhood trauma on later adult behaviour, so developed this theory. - He argued that significant deprivation of maternal love during critical period of attachment formation = -ve internal working model for future relationships & -ve understanding of the world. - They will see world as hostile place making criminal behaviour more likely. - From his research he identified affectionless psychopathy. - In terms of offending behaviour affectionless psychopaths will struggle to form relationships w/ others, unable to sympathise w/ victims & lack remorse for criminal actions. |
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Strength of the Maternal Deprivation Theory as a Psychodynamic Explanation for Offending Behaviour: Research Support
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- Bowlby offers support for link between affectionless psychopathy & maternal deprivation. - Natural experiment involving 88 patients: 44 of the children had been accused of stealing, therefore the criminals, & other 44 were non-criminals but emotionally disturbed (control group). - Found 14/44 thieves described as affectionless psychopaths. - 12/14 had experienced prolonged separation from mother during critical period e.g. staying in foster homes or hospitals. - Bowlby's conclusion offers support for idea that prolonged maternal deprivation causes affectionless and delinquent (offending) behaviour. |
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Limitation of the Maternal Deprivation Theory as a Psychodynamic Explanation for Offending Behaviour: Complex Set of Factors
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- Even though there is link between children who have experienced frequent or prolonged separation from mothers & committing crimes in later life, this link is very casual. - Delinquency is a consequence of a # of complex factors. - Farrington: longitudinal study in UK w/ 400 boys from S. London. - Concluded that most important risk factors for later offending were family history of criminality (genetic or differential association), risk taking personality (Eysenck), low school attainment, poverty & poor parenting (Bowlby). - Shows that all different psychological explanations should be combined to give clearer pic on origin offending behaviour. |
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What does Freud's theory of psychoanalysis believe? (Psychodynamic Explanations) |
- Personality develops from 3 components: id, ego & superego, each o which demand gratification. - Superego is likely to be related to offending behaviour b/c it is concerned w/ right & wrong. |
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State 3 types of superegos that result in offending behaviour. (Psychodynamic Explanations) |
1. Underdeveloped (weak) super ego 2. Deviant superego 3. Overdeveloped (harsh) superego |
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Outline how an underdeveloped superego results in offending behaviour. (Psychodynamic Explanations) |
- If same sex parent is absent during phallic stage (when superego is developing), the child cant internalise parent's moral code as there is no opportunity for identification. - Consequence = person has little control over anti-social behaviour & is dominated by id impulses. |
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Outline how a deviant superego results in offending behaviour. (Psychodynamic Explanations) |
- Normal identification w/ same sex parent occurs during phallic stage (when superego is developing) = child takes on same moral code as that parent. - Consequence = is that parent's behaviour is deviant, child adopts similar deviant behaviours & morals. |
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Outline how an overdeveloped superego results in offending behaviour. (Psychodynamic Explanations) |
- Child may develop very strong identification w/ strict parents & therefore may have a superego that is very developed. - Have excessive feelings of guilt & anxiety most of the time. -If person thinks of acting on the id's desires they will end up feeling guilty. - More likely to feel they should get punished to relieve their guilt. - Consequence = engage in crimes to get caught. |
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Limitation of the superego as a psychodynamic explanation for offending behaviour: Gender Bias
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-Freud's explanation of events during phallic stage proposed that women should develop weaker superego b/c they don't identify as strongly w/ same-sex parents as boys. - B/c Electra complex is less satisfactory & b/c under less pressure to identify w/ mothers b/c of their lower status. - Implication = females should be prone to more criminal behaviour than males. - However, not the case according to statistics of male-female ratio in prison. - Hoffman found hardly any evidence of gender differences, & when there was, girls tended to be more moral than boys. - Views represent alpha bias, exaggerating the difference between men & women & devaluating women. |
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Limitation of the superego as a psychodynamic explanation for offending behaviour: Psychology as a Science
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- Criticism = lack of falsifiability. - Difficulty associated w/ testing some concepts such as an inadequate superego, whose existence is difficult/impossible to prove. - Means that applications to crime cannot be tested empirically & can only be judged @ face value. - Since incapable of being proved wrong, deemed as unscientific so psychodynamic explanations are regarded as pseudoscientific & contribute little to our understanding of crime or how to prevent it. |
