Ch.5 - Learning & Situational Factors For Crime

Question 1

Classical conditioning perspective

Answer 1

The human being is an automation and acts in a monotonous routine manner without active intelligence.

Question 2

Instrumental learning

Answer 2

The learner must do something to the environment in order to obtain a reward, or in some cases, avoid punishment.

• based on learning the consequences of behaviour

Ex. One parent gives candy when the child has temper tantrums and one does not yield. So child learns which parent to use temper tantrums on.

Question 3

Social learning

Answer 3

Involves learning from watching others and organizing social experiences in the brain.

• enables us to integrate knowledge from varied aspects of a persons environment

Question 4

Behaviourism

Answer 4

(John B. Watson, 1913)

Focuses on relationship between stimuli and response

Question 5

B.F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
(Rat example)

Answer 5

Skinner believed thoughts were irrelevant to study of behaviour

• we should care what people do, not what they think (must be observable)

Operant conditioning:

Subject operates on environment and is rewarded (reinforced) or punished

Extinction: don’t get any reaction out of doing something, so subject stops doing it

Question 6

Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
(Dog example)

Answer 6

Classical conditioning:

pair unconditioned stimulus with significant stimulus to induce outcome

• unconditioned stimulus alone then induces outcome

Question 7

Social learning factors

Answer 7

Suggests that to understand criminal behaviour we must examine perceptions, thoughts, expectancies, competencies, and values.

Question 8

Rotter’s Expectancy theory

Answer 8

People behave on expectation that certain behaviour = certain outcome

• people engage in unlawful conduct expecting to gain something in the form of status, power, security, affection, material goods, or living conditions

Question 9

Bandura’s observational learning

Answer 9

Bandura contends that much of our behaviour is initially acquired by watching others, who are called models.

Ex. Child develops behaviours through models like teachers, parents, celebrities

Doll Study: kids who watched adults assault a doll were significantly more likely to imitate that behaviour

Question 10

Aker’s social learning theory

Answer 10

The theory states that people learn to commit deviant acts through interpersonal interactions with their social environment.

Question 11

Effects of television violence - Rip Van Winkle

Answer 11

1. Rip Van Winkle followed 3rd graders for 20 years

• He concluded that viewing TV violence at early age correlated with later aggression

Question 12

Effects of Television Violence - William’s naturalistic settings study

Answer 12

Study in UBC compared 3 BC towns before and 2 years after TV transmitter was installed

• students rated twice as aggressive towards each other after TV installed

Question 13

Contagion (copycat) effect

Answer 13

Copying behaviour portrayed in media or by others

Ex. Theft as seen in a movie

Question 14

Leonard Berkowitz - the socialized and individual offender study

Answer 14

The socialized: offend because they have learned to, or expect rewards, as a result of their interactions with the social environment.

Individual offender: offend as a product of a long, possibly intense series of frustrations resulting from unmet needs.

Question 15

Crimes of obedience

Answer 15

An act performed in response to orders from authorities that are considered illegal or immoral by the larger community.

Question 16

Deindividuation theory

Answer 16

According to Festinger et. al, many people lose their sense of individuality when in a crowd or group, remove self-imposed controls, and neutralize their internalized moral constraints.

Question 17

Stanford Prison Experiment

Answer 17

Zimbargo and his colleagues simulated a prison environment in a Standford building. Prisoners and officers were brought in to carry their roles as if it were real

• Results found that within 6 days, both guards and prisoners fully absorbed their roles (displaying deindividuation)

Question 18

The Bystander Effect

Answer 18

• Also displays deindividuation

The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages and individual from intervening in an emergency situation

Question 19

Moral agency

Answer 19

Behaving in a moral manner - requires that one distinguishes from right and wrong and refrains from doing the wrong thing.

Question 20

Moral disengagement (Bandura, 1990)

Answer 20

The ability to seperate oneself morally from a wrong behaviour by cognitively altering the perception of the situation, and, therefore, not feeling negatively about it.

Question 21

Huesmann’s cognitive scripts model

Answer 21

Says behaviour is controlled by cognitive “scripts”

• expectations about events, responses, outcomes

These scripts are learned + memorized through observing others & direct experience

Question 22

Conclusion

Answer 22

Criminal behaviour, like other behaviour, is an individual’s way of adapting to his or her environment.

• people commit crimes as a result of social experiences instead of biological reasons.