Chapter 9 - Psychological Theories of Crime Flashcards
Antisocial Personality Disorder
Characterized by disregard for the rights of others as well as impulsive, irresponsible, and aggressive behaviour.
Assumption of Discriminating Traits
View that offenders are distinguished from non-offenders by their high levels of impulsiveness and aggression (for example).
Assumption of Offender Deficit
View that offenders have some psychological deficit distinguising them from normal, law abiding citizens
Autonomic Reactivity
Measurement of the extent to which an individual’s physical organism reacts to external stimuli.
Classical Conditioning
Basic form of learning whereby a neutral stimulus is paried with a primary stimulus that naturally elicits a certain response; the neutral stimus comes to elict the same response.
Community Psychology
Perspective that analyzes crime and other social problems as a products of organizational and institutional characteristics. Closely related to sociology.
Ego
Psychoanalytic term denoting rational part of the personality. Mediates between the Id and the Superego and is responsible for dealing with reality and decisions.
Extraversion
A personality characteristic associated with sociability, impulsiveness, and aggression.
ID
Psychological term denoting the most inaccessible and primitive part of the mind. A reservoid of biological urges striving continually for gratification.
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
Preconventional - Egocentric (best for me)
- Punishment
- Instrumental Hedonism
Conventional - Social Expectations (what others expect)
- Approval of others
- Authority maintaining morality
Postconventional - Universality (best for all)
- Democratically accepted law
- Princicples of conscience
Modelling
Form of learning that occurs as a result of watching and imitating.
Piaget
Kohlberg
Moral Development Theorists
Moral Development Theory (Piaget, Kohlberg)
Theories of individual psychology investigating how moral reasoning emerges in the individual. Each individual must go through a sequence of moral developments. High moral development leads to responsible choices when faced with opportunity to involved in criminality.
Operant Conditioning
Basic process by which an individual’s behaviour is shaped by reinforcement or punishment.
Operant Conditioning Theory (Skinner)
Individual behaviour is shaped through both reinforcement and punishment. Behaviour that is rewarded will tend to be continued; behaviour that is punished will cease.
Personality Theory (Eyserick)
Law-abiding people must develop a conditioned fear of deviance. Those who become deliquents and criminals do not develp this fear because of poor conditioning by parents or because they are less succeptible to it. Classical Conditioning.
Psychoanalytic Theory (Freud)
Crime results when ego and superego cannot control antisocial aspects of the id. Occurs because individual has not been adequately socialized in early childhood.
Psychopathology Checklist
- Glibness/Superficial Charm
- Grandiose sense of self-worth
- Need for stimulation / Proness to boredom
- Pathological Lying
- Conning/Manipulation
- Lack or remorse or guilt
- Shallow Affect
- Callous/Lack of Empathy
- Parasitic Lifestyle
- Poor Behavioural Controls
- Promiscuous Sexual Behaviour
- Early Behavioural Problems
- Lack of Realistic, Long-Term Goals
- Impulsivity
- Irresponsibility
- Failure to Accept Responsability for Actions
- Many Short-Term Marital Relationships
- Juvenile Delinquency
- Revocation of Conditional Release
- Criminal Versatility
Psychopathy Theory (Cleckley, Hare)
Psychopaths seem to lack empathy for victims and do not feel guilt about their crimes. They do not learn from experience nor fear consequences of thier behaviour.
Social Learning Theory (Bandura)
Deviant behaviour like aggression can be learned through direct experience or through modelling the behaviour of others.
Socialization
Interative process whereby individuals come to learn and internalize culture and society.
Superego
Psychoanalytic term denoting the ethical and moral dimensions of personality; the conscience.
Token Economy
Behaviour therapy based on operant learning. Indivuduals are rewarded for positive or appropriate behaviour and are disciplined for negative or inappropriate behaviour.
- Individual Level - social terms defined in terms of individual deficit
- Small Group Level -social problems caused by problems in group function.
- Organizational Level - organizations of society have not accomplished what they are designed to.
- Instititional/Community Level - created by institutions rather than by persons, groups, or organizations.
Things like “victimless crimes” (drug abuse, prostitution cut across these levels).
Levels of Analysis
