Adoption Studies

Question 1

Supporting evidence a strength of theory

Answer 1

Hutchins and med nick and later research of mednick et al. Found significant correlation between number of criminal convictions and biological parents

Question 2

Can separate genetics from environment a strength of theory

Answer 2

Adopeted children share same environment with adopted parents and genes with biological parents

Question 3

Theory being methodically flawed a weakness

Answer 3

Fail to consider some children are adopted moneths or years after birth raising possibility of early life experiences may contribute to crime

Question 4

Theory being reductionist a weakness

Answer 4

Only focus on genetic influences and fail to acknowledge other explanations. Like can be difficult for child with emotional and psychological trauma and could manifest as criminal behaviour

Question 5

what is this theory??

Answer 5

genetic

Question 6

explain this adoption study theory??

Answer 6

• comparing criminals to both their biological and adoptive parents to see whether it was nature or nurture that causes their criminal behaviour
• if, with regards to criminal behaviour, the child is more similar to their biological parents than to their adoptive parents, a genetic basis of criminality may be suggested
• if the child id more similar to their adoptive parents, this suggests an environmental infleunce for criminality

Question 7

what is the supporting research for adoption studies??

Answer 7

Hutchings and Mednick (1975) studied 14,000 adopted children and found that a high percentage of boys with criminal convictions too.
- these findings suggest a link between crime and genetics
- Mednick et al (1984) repeated study with different sample to see if gain same results - studied 4000 adopted danish men and compared criminal records with biological and adoptive parents
- found no significant relationshp between number of criminal convictions of adoptive aprents and adopted children - 14% but found correlation between number of criminal convcitions of bio parents and offspring - 20%

Question 8

how foes this theory explain criminal behaviour

Answer 8

The findings of Mednick et al. (1984) show that the criminal concordance rate for biological parents and their children is 20% and is higher than the concordance rate between the adopted parents and their adopted children which is 14.7%. We can therefore conclude that genes play a large role in criminal behaviour.