Criminal Psychology Flashcards
AO1: Explanations of crime and anti social behaviour: Social
Labelling- How we classify ourselves and others using labels which then defines that person. In the context of crime, an individual may be labelled ‘deviant’ if they do not conform to the rules of the powerful social group.
Self-fulfilling prophecy- A prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true by the very existence of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behaviour.
Social learning- Acquiring behaviours, values and attitudes by observing and imitating other people, eg a teenager might learn criminal behaviour by observing a deviant role model.
Strengths -Explanations of crime and anti social behaviour: Social
Becker thinks that labelling is a social construct. That powerful groups construct social rules to label outsiders. Crime only counts when labelled by someone else.
Rosenthal and Jacobson as the students who were labelled as gifted and about to ‘bloom’ their IQ had improved significantly to those who were labelled as ‘standard’ despite being chosen at random.
Jahoda boys named Kwadwo: born on Monday thought to be even tempered. Kwadku: born on a Wednesday were thought to be aggressive. Kwadku 3x more likely to be involved in violent crime.
Bandura found that children would imitate aggressive behaviour towards a doll if a role model did it first.
Weaknesses -Explanations of crime and anti social behaviour: Social
Partial explanation of offending. As implies without labelling crime would not exist. Murderers are criminals regardless of a label most would argue.
Artificial environment as it was in a laboratory so the situation measured is quite different from a real life situation.
AO1: Explanations of crime and anti social behaviour: Biological
Brain injury- ABI- brain damage as a result of falls or sporting accidents, which cause the developing brain to misfire. As the brain is not fully mature until their mid-20s. Impulse control and forward planning are the last to develop and ABI can affect development.
Amygdala and aggression- Almond shaped structure in the temporal lobe in both hemispheres of the brain. In the limbic system and its size, structure and activity of the amygdala correlate with increased aggression.
XYY- 1 in 1000 males are born with an additional Y chromosome. No effect on testosterone levels or sexual development, however are generally taller than average, lower intelligence, more impulsive and experience behavioural difficulties.
Strengths: Explanations of crime and anti social behaviour: Biological
Williams- 196 inmates. 60% of sample recalled a history of one or more head injuries in childhood.
Fazel- Swedish population register from 1979 to 2009. Of individuals who experienced an ABI 8.8% committed a violent crime compared to 3% of control.
Raine- reduced metabolic activity in frontal lobe and over activity in left side of amygdala of criminals pleading NGRI.
Charles Whitman- Shot and killed his wife, mother and 14 others found to have tumour pressing on amygdala.
Jacobs found that men with XYY were overrepresented in prison. 9 out of 315 compared to expected 1 out of 315.
Weaknesses: Explanations of crime and anti social behaviour: Biological
Mental health or drug abuse- Brain injury itself does not necessarily increase aggression it may instead be as a result of mental illness or drug abuse which is more common in those with head injuries.
Not alone- Amygdala does not work alone but is influenced by the OFC which is thought to regulate self control and its reduced functioning is associated with increased aggression.
Re and Birkhoff- Meta analysis of 50 years and concluded there is no link and any prevalence is due to social factors e.g. difficulty to integrate.
AO1: Explanations of crime and anti social behaviour: Personality
Eysenck’s personality theory-
Extraversion-Introversion Extraverts crave excitement and stimulation, and because of this are prone to engage in dangerous, risk taking behaviour. They also tend not to condition easily as they do not learn from their mistakes. This is quite important when thinking about criminal behaviour as it means they don’t learn from punishment.
Neuroticism-Stability Neurotic individuals are nervy and anxious. Their general instability means they are difficult to predict.
It has a biological nature- The constant need for excitement is due to an underactive nervous system which requires unusually high levels of arousal. Individuals who score high on neuroticism scales are volatile and react strongly to situations others would find less stressful.
Psychoticism- individuals who are self centred, cold and lack empathy for other people.
Socialisation- most people the socialisation process in childhood will determine whether a person becomes law abiding or not.
Strengths: Explanations of crime and anti social behaviour: Personality
Buduszek investigated presence of extravert-neurotic-psychoticism individuals among repeat offenders in a high security prison. Found that criminal thinking style
Raine took participants and 24 years later found that those with a criminal record had shown under arousal of the nervous system aged 15.
Digman accepts extraversion and neuroticicsm but adds openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness. Low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness are related to criminal behaviour.
Applications- Criminal tendencies can be identified from early childhood and targeted and intervened early to reduce risk of offending.
Weaknesses: Explanations of crime and anti social behaviour: Personality
Farringdon found little evidence that that the EPQ was an adequate measure for predicting offending in juveniles or adults.
Raine Researchers argued that Raine’s study likely had a lot of confounding variables eg social factors effecting criminal behaviour.
Lipsey and Derzon found that impulsivity is a better predicter for antisocial behaviour. Suggesting criminal behaviour is more complicated than previously predicted.
Mischel pointed out that behaviour is not consistent across different contexts but situation specific. People react to environmental cues rather than guided by their ‘inner self’
AO1: Factors effecting EWT: Reliability
Post event information- Any information supplied to an eyewitness that may affect their recall. Including leading questions and post event discussion.
Leading questions- The way in which a question is framed that triggers schemes that effects memory of that event. Witnesses may incorrectly access the information provided in the first question, rather than what they remember.
The influence of anxiety- The inverted U relationship between anxiety and recall.
Weapon focus- When the perpetrator is carrying a weapon e.g. a gun or a knife, focus is draw to the weapon and therefore forget other details such as what the perpetrator looked like and/or what they were wearing gets forgotten or mis recalled. This is tunnel theory.
Strengths: Factors effecting EWT: Reliability
Loftus and Palmer found that if participants were asked using the verb ‘smashed’ vs ‘hit’ 16 of the smashed groups recalled seeing glass compared to 7 in the hit and 6 in the control.
Gabbert showed participants a video of the same crime from different angles and found that when participants were allowed to discuss 71% referred to details they couldn’t have seen.
Valentine and Mesout found that the participants with anxiety levels above the mean had a 17% accuracy of identification compared to 75% for those below median.
Johnson and Scott found that when a man emerged from a room with a bloody knife compared to a pen accuracy of identification of the man decreased.
Applications- This has lead to the introduction of social framework evidence in legal cases. In the US psychologists might be brought in to bring some context to EWT.
Weaknesses: Factors effecting EWT: Reliability
Yuille and Cutshall despite being given 2 leading questions they could still gave accurate accounts of events.
Christianson and Hubinette found that witnesses of a Canadian shooting that had been directly threatened or attacked had better recall of the sequence of events than onlookers (low anxiety).
Pickel found that both the raw chicken and the handgun resulted in the poorest recall of the man. Due to their high unusualness or high shock factor not their high threat nature.
