biological explanations

Question 1

biological explanations

Answer 1

brain injury
amygdala and aggression
personality
XYY syndrome

(genes and environment + personality disorder + neurotransmitters)

Question 2

brain injury and ev

Answer 2

• acquired brain injury ABI caused by falling or alcohol use
• link to offending particularly if the ABI took place in childhood
  implications that ABI’s cause
  1. disruption in cognitive development
  2. risk-taking behaviour potentially leading to crime

Williams et al 2010 - 196 inmates UK prison 60% recalled one or more head injury in youth (group tended to offend at a younger age and had more offences)

Evaluation
offenders have history of substance misuse, personality disorders or experienced violence as child therefore therefore other factors

Question 3

amygdala and aggression and ev

Answer 3

amygdala = responsible for controlling human emotions
- amygdala size had impact on aggression

Pardini et al 2014 - group of 26 year old men and divided into 2 groups (normal and reduced size). 3 years later found that reduced size amygdala were far more aggressive and increased violence and psychopathic traits

Evaluation
- it is possible that a person may have a smaller amygdala yet not act in a psychopathic way

Question 4

XYY syndrome and ev

Answer 4

1/10000 born with y chromosome
- taller, dumber, and have behavioural difficulties and more aggressive
XX= female XY= male

Evaluation

• determining XYY requires skilled staff therefore not practical
• women also engage in criminal behaviour and XYY fails to account for criminal behaviour among women

Question 5

personality

Answer 5

5 dimensions:

1. extraversion
2. introversion
3. neuroticism
4. stability
5. psychoticism

Eysenck 1990 - arousal theory
= individuals are motivated to act in a way to maintain a certain level of physiological arousal. When arousal level drops we engage in stimulating behaviour to increase arousal

• activity in the ARAS stimulates the cerebral cortex which leads to higher cortical arousal
  introverts = higher levels of activity therefore they require less stimulation or arousal which is why they are less out-going
  extroverts = underachieve ARAS so require great amounts of external stimulation

neuroticism - activation threshold in SNS (where emotional states are regulated)
neurotic = increased activation levels and lower threshold in limbic system. easily upset

Question 6

personality evaluation

Answer 6

• simplistic as doesn’t take into account that someones behaviour may differ depending on the situation
• usually tested from self-report data
• personality is a contributing factor and not a causal factor

Question 7

other genetic explanations for criminality

Answer 7

genes and environment
adoption studies: 85.7% of male adoptees with a criminal record had a birth father with criminal record - Hutchings et al 1997

Personality disorders
e.g. anti social and paranoid

neurotransmitters

• low serotonin levels linked with increased aggression
• serotonin inhibits our impulsive response to stimuli = over-reaction in emotional situations
• Kennedy 2008 - dopamine levels in mice would increase and act as a reward during aggression so increased dopamine levels are not a cause but a consequence