Criminal Flashcards

Question

What is the key criticism to the social learning theory

Answer 1

Is focuses on nurture rather than rather nature

Answer 2

- the theory doesn’t actually explain how crimes are started or where they come from - the theory doesn’t explain how society’s attempts to stop crimes through punishments have failed

Answer 3

To see whether video games had more effect on violence behaviour than Tv did on children

Answer 4

Playing video games would have created more violent behaviours compared to others

Answer 5

The social learning theory suggests that all behaviour is learnt through observation and that children are particularly influenced by what they see, this includes criminal behaviour.

Answer 6

Children will **identify** with **role models**, particularly if they have similar characteristics to them.

Answer 7

In the case of criminal/anti-social behaviour a child may **observe** a criminal act which creates a **mental representation** in their mind, because they have seen this **particular behaviour** they are more likely to **copy or imitate*b the act.

Answer 8

The likelihood of the criminality being **imitated** is further increased by the process of **vicarious reinforcement**, these are any **rewards** that the observer might **witness**. For example, a role model could be rewarded for their criminality; financially or through an increased status.

Answer 9

As they start to act a behaviour out themselves and they receive direct reinforcement, they continue to repeat the behaviour until it becomes internalised

Answer 10

If they are successful in the criminal act and are not caught, then they will receive direct reinforcement through the gaining of the item they have stolen.

Answer 11

for ignoring the role of nature and focusing too much on nurture; not every person who observes criminal behaviour will be a criminal themselves.

Answer 12

It may be due to the biology that someone shares, such as their genes or brain dysfunctions.

Answer 13

measures of psychotics, extroversion and self-esteem (linked to neuroticism)world be significant predictors of self reported delinquency (crime)

Answer 14

Longitudinal - over two years, he first measured the three traitsand then correlated these with self reported delinquency at the and of The study.

Answer 15

282, thirteen - fifteen year olds taken from two Catholic independent schools in Australia

Answer 16

Questionnaire -with closed questions

Answer 17

There was appositive correlation between psychotism and delinquency Extroversion and delinquency had a weak correlation Males had a higher score of delinquency than females. There was no significant correlation between self-esteem and delinquency Psychobism was found to be the best predictor of delinquency

Answer 18

- The sample was culturally bias - the children were al from one religion and one country other countries and religions may have different influences on delinquent behaviour - The participants may of given socially desirable responses especially as questions are around delinquency - the use of closed questions leads to low construct validity as personality and delinquency are too complex to reduce to scores. - Th 20% who dropped out of the study May not of been represented in the those left in the experiment, those with low levels of delinquency may not be interested in the study. - it is not possible to determine a cause and effect with correlation studies, this leads to the question of whether delinquency affects children’s personality, if we assume it’s not fixed.

Answer 19

The automatic nervous system is over active, this means the limbic system is over active, producing the emotions of worry and anxiety

Answer 20

The reticular activation system which filters information from around us, when this is over active too much information is filtered out this means that the cerebral cortex is under stimulated, meaning the person likes to thrill seek to stimulate the cerebral cortex