A.C. 2.2- INDIVIDUALISTIC THEORIES

Question 1

What is behaviourism (learning theories)?

Answer 1

This the theory that human and animal behaviour can be explained in terms of conditioning without thoughts and feelings. Changes in behaviour are caused by a persons direct experience with their environment.

Question 2

What is classical conditioning (learning theories)?

Answer 2

This is learning through association and was discovered by Pavlov. In simple terms, two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response. Watson, another theorist said that this conditioning was able to explain all aspects of human behaviour, including criminal behaviour.
(REMEBER PAVLOVS’ CLASSICAL CONDITIONING WITH DOGS)

Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) = Unconditioned response (UCR)
USC + Neutral stimulus (NS) = UCR
Controlled stimulus (CS) = Conditioned response (CR)

Question 3

What is a draw back of classical conditioning (learning theories)?

Answer 3

It only focuses on instinctive and reflexive behaviours, where as crime tends to have more complex motivations

Question 4

What is operant conditioning (learning theories)?

Answer 4

This was developed by BF Skinner and this is learning through consequences of behaviour. Therefore, if a particular behaviour results in a reward (a reinforcement), it is likely to be repeated. On the other hand, behaviour that results in an undesirable outcome is likely to not be repeated.

Question 5

What is positive reinforcement (learning theories)?

Answer 5

This is adding something to a situation, like a treat or an encouraging word. For example you could receive £5 for every room you clean in a house

Question 6

What is negative reinforcement (learning theories)?

Answer 6

This is taking something away from the situation, like removing a punishment. For example; texting during class and the teacher taking your phone away

Question 7

What is Jeffery’s differential theory (learning theories)?

Answer 7

He argued that criminal behaviour is learned through the reinforcement of particular behaviours. If crime has more rewarding consequences than punishing one for an individual, they will be more likely to engage in criminal behaviour. These rewards could be financial, but also emotional (friendship or the respect of peers). If we want to explain someone’s offending, we need to look at the balance of rewards and punishments for the particular individual

Question 8

What is Bandura’s social learning theory?

Answer 8

Bandura made children watch an adult hit, punch a ‘Bobo doll’. Once the children were then left alone in the room with the Bobo doll, the majority of them also repeated this behaviour. This proves that children are likely to learn traits and behaviours from other people in society. Children will likely pick up behaviours from role models they have. So for example, teachers, parents, older siblings and so on.

Question 9

Evaluation of learning theories

Answer 9

Strengths-
- Crime often runs in families, this implies that families ‘teach’ criminality in their members (Mafia)
- Attitudes of work groups can normalise white collar crimes
- It can explain cultural differences in deviance and criminal behaviour (honour killings)
- Has a clear basis in well understood and scientific behavioural theory (Pavlov, Watson and Skinner)

Weaknesses-
- Not everyone has been exposed to criminal influences becomes criminal (not deterministic)
- The theory rests on the theory of operant conditioning, which is based primarily on animal research- much more complex in humans
- Ignores internal mental processes, rationality and free will
- Much of the original research in learning theories was based on animals (or children) - and you cannot always compare animals and children with adults, you are not comparing like with like
- Doesn’t consider the long term effects of the Bobo doll experiment

Question 10

What is the Freudian theory - Tripartite theory (psychodynamic theories)?

Answer 10

Was founded by Sigmund Freud and according to him, our early childhood experiences determine our personality and future behaviour. Freud believed our minds are like an iceberg, with only the tip that can be seen. The top of the iceberg is the conscious part of the brain and personality, just below the surface is the preconscious and the ego, further down is the super-ego and then the id and then the unconscious. He believed that in order to understand criminal behaviour, we need to understand how our personality develops and how that relates to our early relationships, especially with our parents. Freud says human behaviour can be explained in terms of INNER CONFLICT of the mind

Question 11

What is the id?

Answer 11

This is the personality construct that we are born with. It’s the primitive and instinctive component of someone’s personality. Operates on the pleasure principle (if it feels good, do it). This is the source of our most primal wishes, desires and fears and the id only really responds to things like hunger, thirst and sexual gratification.

Question 12

What is the ego?

Answer 12

This is the only part of our conscious personality. It’s what the person is aware of when they think about themselves and is what they usually try to project towards others

Question 13

What is the super-ego?

Answer 13

The ‘ideal’ force, the civilised, socially acceptable figure the person strives to be. It operates on morality principle and includes our understanding of right and wrong. Opposes the id and is essentially an internalised set of rules passed down from our parents. It is the moral thermometer of the brain.

Question 14

What is the psychodynamic theory?

Answer 14

It attempts to explain that there is more to a criminal than someone who has simply failed to be correctly socialised; it attempts to understand why someone doesn’t seem to be able to learn acceptable values. IT FOCUSES ON BEHAVIOUR BEING DETERMINED BY UNCONCSIOUS FACTORS

Question 15

Evaluation of the psychodynamic theory

Answer 15

Strengths-
- The theories explain why early socialisation is so important (Bowlby and psychosexual phases are very important) (said that poor socialisation in oral, anal and phallic stages lead to later problems)
- It has had some influence over policies for dealing with crime and deviance
- Some research evidence from neo-Freudians (Bowlby’s study)

Weaknesses-
- The unconscious is impossible to study scientifically- meaning it is unfalsifiable
- There is very little scientific / empirical (real word) research
- Very culture-based - assumes particular family are the norm

Question 16

What is Freuds psychosexual stages of development (psychodynamic theories)?

Answer 16

Freud thought that the id, ego and super-ego were constantly in conflict with one another and he focused on the conflicts concerning sexual and aggressive urges because these urges are most likely to violate societal rules. He thought our personality developed over time in Psychosexual Stages. At each stage we become fixated on something.

• Oral stage- 0-1 years old- fixation=mouth/ consequences of fixation- orally aggressive- signs include chewing gum or ends of pens- orally passive- signs include smoking or eating. Fixation at this stage may result in passivity, gullibility, immaturity and a manipulative personality
• Anal stage- 2-3 years old- fixation=bowel and bladder movements/ consequences of fixation- anal retentive- obsession with organisation or excessive neatness - anal expulsive- reckless, careless, defiant, disorganised
• Phallic stage- 3-6 years- fixation=genitals / consequence of fixation- Oedipus complex (when a son wants to be with his mother and tries to act like his father in order to get his mother- in boys only) and Electra complex (the opposite- so daughter wants father- in girls only)
• Latency stage- 6-11 years old or until puberty- fixation= dormant sexual feelings / consequences of fixation- although people do not usually fixate at this stage as much, it is thought that of they do they tend to be extremely sexually unfulfilled
• Genital stage- 11+ (puberty and beyond)- fixation= sexual interests mature / consequences of fixation- frigidity (usually about a woman), impotence (usually about a man), unsatisfactory relationships

Question 17

What does a weak superego mean?

Answer 17

The individual will feel less guilty about doing criminal activities or hurting others. Less inhibition about acting on the id’s selfish or aggressive urges. (e.g maybe murder or violent/aggressive behaviour)

Question 18

What does a harsh superego mean?

Answer 18

This creates deep seated feelings of guilt in the individual, who then craves punishment as a release from those feelings. The person may engage in compulsive repeat offending in order to be punished. This need for punishment could be seen by someone committing a crime in order to be caught (attention seeking)

Question 19

What does a deviant superego mean?

Answer 19

This is successfully socialised BUT into a deviant moral code. A son may have a perfectly good relationship with his criminal father and so he internalises his fathers criminal values. His super-ego wont make him feel guilty for completing criminal acts.

Question 20

What was Bowlby’s theory?

Answer 20

Bowlby’s theory is called maternal deprivation or the study of the 44 Juvenile Thieves. Bowlby was influenced by Freud and believed there was a link between maternal (mother) deprivation and deviant, anti-social or criminal behaviour. He thought children need to be close and have a continuous connection to their primary care giver from birth to the age of 5 in order to develop normally (Bowlby thought this would be the mother). He thought that if the mother-child bond is broken by things like separation even if it is for a short amount of time, he thought it may mean that the child is not able to form meaningful emotional relationships with others. Bowlby called this ‘affectionless psychopathy’ and in some cases this can lead to criminal behaviour. His study (44 juvenile thieves) supported this.

Question 21

What are cognitive (psychological) theories of crime?

Answer 21

These are to do with the brain and relate to personality. For example, Eysenck’s personality theory

Question 22

What is the 44 juvenile thieves study?

Answer 22

Bowlby compared 44 thieves with 44 non-thieves. Bowlby conducted surveys on the 88 juveniles and found that 17/44 thieves had experienced early prolonged separation from their mothers before 5 years. Out of these 17, 15 were classed as ‘affectionless psychopaths’ (no guilt or remorse). But only 2/44 non-thieves had experienced this separation.

Question 23

What is the Eysenck personality theory?

Answer 23

He proposed a theory of personality based on biological factors, arguing that individuals inherit a type of nervous system that affects their ability to learn and adapt to the environment. He founded a theory by studying 400 soldiers while carrying out an initial assessment on them before they were diagnosed by a psychiatrist and being treated in hospital for neurotic disorders. Eysenck studied 2070 male prisoners and 2422 male controls. The prisoners scored higher on extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism than the non-criminal controls. He came up with ❤ factor analysis that was a technique that reduces behaviour to a number of factors which can be grouped together under separate headings, called dimensions. He found that their behaviour could be represented by 2 dimensions- introversion / extroversion or neuroticism / stability. Eysenck called these second-order personality traits. He thought that each personality can be traced back to different biological causes. Personality is dependent on the balance between excitation ad inhibition process of the autonomic nervous system (ANS).
Eysenck thought that if someone had high levels of neuroticism and extrovertism, they would be more likely to be criminal.

Question 24

What are extraverts?

Answer 24

Sociable and crave excitement and change and thus can become bored easily. They tend to be carefree, optimistic and this can lead to impulsive, rule-breaking behaviour. They are more likely to take risks and be thrill seekers.

Question 25

What are introverts?

Answer 25

Quiet and reserved. They are already over-aroused and shun sensation and stimulation. Introverts are reserved, plan their actions and control their emotions. They tend to be serious, reliable and pessimistic.

Question 26

What is neuroticism?

Answer 26

Anxious and nervous. Someone high in neuroticism will be much more unstable than a normal person and is prone to overreacting to stimuli and may be quick to worry, anger or fear. They can be overly emotional and find it difficult to calm down once upset. Neurotic individuals have an ANS that responds quickly to stress but they are also harder to condition into following societies rules because their high anxiety levels prevent them from learning from punishment for their mistakes. Someone who has low neuroticism, their nervous system will generally be less reactive to stressful situations, remaining level headed and calm.

Question 27

What is psychoticism?

Answer 27

Lack empathy, cruel, a loner, aggressive and troublesome. This has been related to high levels of testosterone. The higher the testosterone, the higher the level of psychoticism, with low levels related to more normal balanced behaviour. Having high psychoticism can lead to criminality and can overlap with serious psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia.

Question 28

Evaluation of Eysenck’s personality theory

Answer 28

Strengths-
- It takes into account both nature and nurture. Eysenck’s predispositions towards certain personality traits combined with conditioning and socialisation during childhood in order to create our personality.
- It allows clear measurement of personality traits via the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)
- Research evidence: evidence to support this theory comes from Eysenck’s study of 2070 male prisoners and 2422 male controls. The prisoners scored higher on extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism than the non-criminal controls.

Weaknesses-
- The E scale may be measuring 2 separate traits - sociability and impulsiveness- offenders only tend to score highly on impulsiveness
- While we can find correlations between traits and personality - we cannot use that to determine causality (cannot say it causes crime)
- Maybe only impulsive criminals get caught-so the prison population is not representative of all criminal activity
- Eysenck’s tests used a self-report questionnaires- these may not produce valid results because people may lie (or not understand) about themselves.
- Farrington’s research could find no link between prisoners and extraversion, though he did find that prisoners tend to be neurotic and psychotic.