Biological Theories of Crime / D. Krupp Excerpt Flashcards
Modern Biological Theories of Crime…
Are aimed at characterizing the functional, genetic and neurological bases of criminal behaviour.
Why are people hesitant about Biological Theories of Crime because…
There is an extremely negative history associated with it (scientific racism, sexism, eugenics, etc.)
A genotype is…
The genetic constitution of an individual organism.
A phenotype is…
The set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with its environment.
Natural selection occurs when…
Genetic differences cause phenotypic differences. Phenotypic differences cause differences in “fitness” (reproductive success).
Reproductive variance refers to…
The variability in the distribution of the reproductive success among members of the same sex.
Greater reproductive variance leads to…
Increased same-sex competition.
The First Law of Behavioural Genetics states…
All human behavioural traits are heritable.
The Second Law of Behavioural Genetics states…
The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of genes.
The Third Law of Behavioural Genetics states…
A substantial portion of variation in complex human being traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes of families.
Chabris et al. 2015 added a Fourth Law, which states…
A typical human behavioural trait is associated with many genetic variants, each of which accounts for a very small percentage of the behavioural variability.
