criminal psychology topic 1-what makes a criminal Flashcards
raine sample
opportunistic sample of 41 people charged for murder or manslaughter. 39 men 2 women mean age 34. all had various conditions including head injury or organic brain damage, schizophrenia or epilepsy
compared against people same age and gender with no crime accused against them-matched pairs design.
raine procedure
- each participant injected with a glucose tracer
- each participant was then monitored for a 32 min period while they completed a continuous performance task which involved them indicating each time the number 0 appeared on a screen; the numbers visually degrading over time to require more effort of each members pre-frontal cortex
- after the 32 mins each participant was given a PET scan
raine results
murders pleading NGRI have a significantly different patterns of brain metabolism in a number of different areas:
1.reduced activity in the pre-frontal cortex resulting in impulsivity, loss of self control, immaturity, altered emotionality and an inability to modify behaviour
2. less activity in the left side and more activity in the right side of the amygdala- suggests NGRIs may have experienced a lack of fear
3, less activity in the corpus callosum suggesting an inability to grasp the long term implications of a situation
palmer and hollin- moral development
cognitive explanation
126 male offenders compared to 332 non offenders
DV-socio-moral reflection measure-11 qs assessing the participants moral reasoning
showed that male offenders had the least mature moral reasoning and that most offenders were at the conventional level showing that young male offenders seem to have lower levels of moral reasoning
limitations of raines study
results cannot be taken to indicate that violence is determined by biology alone, do not show that the NGRIs are not responsible for their actions and cannot be generalised to other non-violent offenders
jahoda-self fulfilling prophecy
according to the ashanti, boys born on a wednesday are thought to be violent and aggressive while monday boys are meant to be more calm.
jahoda examined the names of violent offences recorded in court over a 5 year period and found monday boys accounted for 6.9% of offences and wednesday boys 22%
raine-mauritius study
1,795 3 year olds from mauritius studies. 100 given intervention programme, nutrition, physical exercise, cognitive stimulation compared to control group.
at age 11 children in intervention group had better attention and inc arousal in brains so less attention seeking.
at age 17 children in the intervention scores lower on conduct disorder ratings, less cruel to others, less likely to pick fights, not hot tempered.
further study 100 children drank juice with omega 3 fish oil everyday and reported a significant reduction in aggression, delinquency and attention problems
smoking in pregnancy and testosterone
smoking cigarettes during pregnancy can result in the foetus experiencing higher pre-natal exposure to testosterone. the length of a childs ring finger will indicate how much testosterone they were exposed to as a foetus. relatively long ring fingers are associated with being dominant and having personalities linked to aggression, anti-social behaviour, hyper activity and a lack of empathy
