Criminal Behaviour - Individual Differences Explanation Flashcards
What are the Two Explanations?
- Eysenck’s Criminal of Personality
2. Cognitive Factors
Explain Eysenck’s Theory of Personality.
- Developed in 1967/78
- Based on the idea that character traits tend to cluster along 3 dimensions
1. Extroversion/Introversion
2. Neuoticism/Stability
3. Psychoticism/Normality - The two most important dimensions are introversion/extroversion + satble/neuroticism - psychoiticism added later
- Personality test called Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)
What is Neruoticism?
- Tendency to experience negative emotional status rather than positive emotional status
What was Eysenck’s Opinion on Biological Basis?
- Each trait has a biological basis which is innate - 67% of variance for the traits is due to genetic factor
What is the Biological Basis for Extroversion?
- Determined by overall level of arousal in a person’s nervous system
- Person who is under-aroused requires more stimulation whereas over-aroused person tends to avoid this
- Extroverts seek external stimulation to increase cortical arousal
- Introverts are innately over-aroused - seek to reduce/avoid stimulation
What is the Biological Basis for Neuroticism?
- Determined by the level of stability in sympathetic nervous system - how much a person responds in situations of threat (fight/flight)
- A neurotic person is someone who’s slightly unstable reacts/gets upset easily
What is the Biological Basis for Psychoticism?
- Related to high levels of testosterone - men more likely at this end of spectrum
How Does Eysenck’s Criminal Personality Link to Criminal Behvaiour?
- Link to personality can be explained through terms of arousal - extroverts seek more arousal + therefore engages in more dangerous actions
- Neurotics are unstable and therefore prone to over-react to stimulation of threat - explain some criminal activity
- Psychoticism easily linked to criminality - individuals are aggressive + lack empathy
- Criminality in terms of out come between innate personality + socialization - person born with certain personality traits but interaction with the environment is key in development of criminality - seen in conditioning - ‘normal’ person wrongdoing is avoided because of previous punishment (operant conditioning)
- Eysenck claimed that extroverts + neurotics don’t condition as easily - don’t learn to avoid anti-social behaviour
Eysenck’s Criminal Personality Evaluation
Support for Link Between Personality + Criminal Behaviour
POSITIVE
- Dunlop (2012) = extroversion + psychoticism (+lie scales) were good predictions of delinquency - however, (in this study) all participants were students + their friends (aged 15-75yrs) delinquency assessed through minor offences in previous 12 months
- Dam (2007) = only small group of male offenders had high scores in all 3 areas
Eysenck’s Criminal Personality Evaluation
Research on the Genetic Basis of Personality
POSITIVE
- Biological basis support from twin studies
- Zuckerman (1987) = +.24 for DZ twins on neuroticism and +.52 for MZ twins - large genetic component - extroversion DZ twins scored +.12 and MZ twins scored +.51 - similar for psychoticism
- Not as high as Eysenck claimed
Eysenck’s Criminal Personality Evaluation
Personality May Not be Consistent
NEGATIVE
- Assumes personality is consistent - many psychologists support situational perspective - people may be consistent in similar situations but not across every situation
- Example = relaxed at home + neurotic at work
- Mischel (1982) = asked family/friends/strangers to rate 63 students in variety of situations - no correlation
- Notion of a criminal personality is flawed - people don’t have just 1 personality
Eysenck’s Criminal Personality Evaluation
Personality Test May Not be Reliable
NEGATIVE
- Score/label given is dependent on answers given on a personality questionnaire (EPQ)
- Person is responding to demands of question - asked to select traits that apply to them but response may not be reality
- Countered by using lie scales - if person is probably being dishonest (tending towards socially desirable answers) their data is discarded
- Score on a personality test unlikely to ever enable the identification of criminals
What are Cognitive Distortions?
- Form of irrational thinking - reality twisted so that what is perceived is no longer representative of what is true
- Results in person’s perception of events being wrong but they think it’s accurate
- Offender Denys/rationalises their behaviour
What is a Attribution?
- What we think when we observe someone’s behaviour/actions and draw inference about what it means
What is a Hostile Attribution Bias?
- Always thinking the worst of someone
Communicating that they like you / / Person Smiles \ \ Person is thinking bad thoughts about you - Negative interpretations lead to more aggressive behaviour (always thinking the worst)
- For criminal behaviour this bias if likely linked to increased levels of aggression
What is Minimisation?
- Consequences of a situation is under-exaggerated
- For Criminal Behaviour can explain how an offender may reduce negative interpretations of their behaviour before + after Crime - helps individual to accept the consequences of behaviour - reduces negative emotions
- Example = burglary - steals few things from a wealthy person - little effect on their life - burglar doesn’t feel bad
What are Kohlberg’s Levels of Moral Reasoning?
- Kohlberg (1969) - theory of moral reasoning - interviewed males about moral decisions
- 3 levels + 6 stages
- each stage represents a more advanced form of moral understanding - people progress as a consequences of biological maturity + opportunity to develop their thinking
- For Criminal Behaviour - 10% adults =. Post-conventional (longitudinal study)
Describes Kohlberg’s Pre-conventional Level
Stage One
- Punishment + obedience focuses on rules enforced by punishment
Stage Two
- ‘right’ defined by person’s own need
Describes Kohlberg’s Conventional Level
Stage Three
- Good Boy/Girl
Stage Four
- Social order refers to duties of each citizen
Describes Kohlberg’s Post-Conventional Level
Stage Five
- Individual’s right more important than law
Stage Six
- Universal Ethical Principle
Cognitive Factors Evaluation
Research Support for Hostile Attribution Bias
POSITIVE
- Schomenberg + Justye (2014) = showed emotionally ambiguous faces to violent offenders - faces showed varying levels of intensity of anger/fear/happiness - offenders more likely to interpret any picture that had some anger as an expression of aggression
- Partly explains Aggressive/impulsive behaviour
Cognitive Factors Evaluation
Research Support for Minimisation
POSITIVE
- Kennedy + Grushin (1992) = sex offenders accounts of their crimes - downplayed their behaviour - offender stated that victim’s behaviour contributed to crime
HOWEVER
- Maruna + Mann (2006) = minimisation part of normal behaviour - all people blame events on external sources as a way of protecting themselves
Cognitive Factors Evaluation
Research Support for Moral Reasoning
POSITIVE
- Research conducted in a range of countries
- Colby + Kohlberg (2007) = reported that the sequence of stages appeared universally - post con. reasoning skills were less common in rural areas
- Chen + Howitt (2007) = test based on Kohlberg’s stages to assess 330 males adolescent offenders - those who showed more advanced reasoning were less likely to be involved with violence
- Gudjonsson + Sigurdsson (2007) = offending motivation questionnaire assess 128 male juvenile offenders - 38% = didn’t consider consequences + 36% = confident they wouldn’t get caught
Cognitive Factors Evaluation
Limitation of Kohlberg
NEGATIVE
- Moral thinking rather than behaviour
- Krebs + Renhom (2005) = Moral principles only 1 factor in moral behaviour + may be overridden by more practical factors (personal financial gain)
- Only based on male sample - gender bias
- Gilligan (1982) = theory is too focused on male perspective - justice rather than caring
Applying Cognitive Factors to Modifying Criminal Behaviour: Anger Management
- Based on principles of CBT
- Controlling Anger + Learning to Manage it (CALM)
- Designed by clinical psychologists - includes a version that can be used in correctional institutions
- 24 teaches participants to manage + understand emotions in order to prevent + control problematic emotions - many methods (personal assignments/modelling/role play) to teach + promote lasting change of inappropriate/unproductive thoughts/behaviours patterns
- Sessions aims to develop skills that will reduce frequency/intensity/duration of anger - lessons likelihood of aggression + Criminal Behaviour
