A2 - Turning to Crime - Biology - Gender Differences

Question 1

What is the female:male ratio in prison?

Answer 1

For every female in prison, there are 9 males in prison. Since males are over-represented in prisons, suggesting that gender could be a reason for criminality.

Question 2

What does evolutionary psychology say?

Answer 2

• A risk-taking male has evolutionary advantages to a female in terms of health and survival chances.
• Males have a tendency towards risk-taking behaviour, this innate drive may lead them to seek danger and take risks, which in a modern society may be criminality.
• This behaviour links back in time, when males were expected to be the hunters and therefore had a lower life expectancy.

Question 3

Who conducted a study on gender differences?

Answer 3

Daly & Wilson (2001)`

Question 4

What kind of study was it?

Answer 4

A correlational study

Question 5

What data was used?

Answer 5

School, police and local demographic records.

Question 6

What did they find with homicide rates?

Answer 6

Homicide rates varied from 1.3 - 156 homicides per 100,000 people in the local area per annum.

Question 7

What correlation was found?

Answer 7

They found a negative correlation of -0.88 between the life expectancy and homicide rate in an area. Lower life expectancies were correlated with higher homicide rates.

Question 8

What did they find in particular with males? (2 points)

Answer 8

• Due to their ‘short life horizons’, they tended to discount their future and were more likely to engage in risky behaviour (e.g. crime).
• They had an inherent need to seek thrills and danger, which increased their risk taking for ‘short-term horizons’.

Question 9

How is the study reliable?

Answer 9

It uses survey data (police, school and local demographic records) to gain results.

Question 10

How is the study generalizable?

Answer 10

It uses a large data set, making it more representative of the overall population of Chicago.

Question 11

How might the study be low in generalizability?

Answer 11

It uses a biased sample which is rooted in Chicago, meaning that it cannot be generalized to the rest of the US and other cultures.

Question 12

Does the study establish cause and effect?

Answer 12

No, since it is a correlational study.

Question 13

How is the study reductionist?

Answer 13

It ignores other factors such as social and cognitive.

Question 14

Name all 5 evaluative points.

Answer 14

1. High generalizability
2. Biased sample > low generalizability
3. Reliability
4. Low validity > doesn’t establish cause and effect
5. Reductionist