Criminological Psychology Flashcards
Define crime.
An act or omission which constitutes an offence, which is forbidden and punishable by law.
Define anti-social behaviour.
Acting in a manner that has or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons, not of the same household as the perpetrator.
How does brain injury explain anti-social behaviour?
Frontal lobe/pre-frontal cortex damage affects decision making, so damage here can result in poor decisions and lead to anti-social behaviour. It can also make someone more impulsive and likely to have outbursts of behaviour.
The amygdala has a vital role in regulating emotional responses in fight or flight situations. An asymmetrical amygdala can cause aggression, as emotions are excited and not inhibited. Damage to the right amygdala leads to a greater deficit in decision making and appropriate social behaviour in men. A smaller amygdala can cause incorrect social judgments about fear responses, therefore predicting future violence.
Brain injury can also be caused by the toxic effect of alcohol on the central nervous system, as it reduces the absorption of vitamin B1, which acts as a nutrient for brain tissue. Deficiencies in this area can lead to problems with balance and decision making - which could result in anti-soical behaviour.
What supporting evidence is there for brain injury as an explanation of anti-social behaviour?
Supporting evidence comes from the case study of Charles Whitman who killed both his wife, mother and 17 students at Texas University - whilst injuring many more. An autopsy found that he had a large tumour in the limbic area of his brain - showing that damage to the brain can result in aggression.
Blair found that case studies of anti-social personality disorders often have frontal lobe damage, which links brain injury to criminal behaviour. ASPD can lead to inborn crime, which is out of the individual’s control.
Pardini: people with smaller amygdalas are 3x more likely to exhibit aggression, violence and psychopathic tendencies. Showing that a small amygdala can be used to predict future violence.
Glenn: using fMRI scans, found reduced activity during moral reasoning tasks, showing psychopaths worry less about committing crimes or hurting others. Shows that moral reasoning and crime are linked, therefore the amygdala affects aggression levels.
What are the issues and debates regarding brain injury as an explanation of anti-social behaviour?
Reductionist: focuses on brain injury as the cause of criminal behaviour, but ignores nurture factors such as a poor upbringing and observing and imitating crime.
Ignores individual differences in anti-social behaviour. Not everyone who suffers from brain injury will begin to act out aggressively, which means that there must be other factors as well as brain injury that contribute to crime.
How does XYY syndrome explain criminal behaviour?
XYY occurs in 1:1000 male births, through a random mutation. It has been found that males with an extra Y chromosome are more likely to get into trouble with the police compared to XY males. They are also often taller, experience severe acne during adolescence, more sensitive to ADHD, more likely to have learning disabilities, behavioural problems and be on the autistic spectrum compared to their siblings.
What supporting evidence is there for XYY syndrome as an explanation for criminal behaviour?
Jacob found that XYY males are over represented in prisons - for example 15 per 1000 compared to 1 per 1000 found in the general population. This shows there seems to be a link between XYY males and being convicted of a crime, resulting in a prison sentence.
Highly scientific explanation as it looks at genetics - which are objective so the theory is highly valid as there is less researcher bias.
What are the issues and debates regarding XYY syndrome as an explanation of criminal behaviour?
Reductionist: ignores nurture explanations for criminal behaviour such as upbringing, environment and role models. Incomplete to focus solely on XYY.
Socially sensitive: implicates males in criminal behaviour. Also suggests that XYY males are likely to become criminals, which could lead to them being labelled as such, despite never having displayed any signs of this.
How would Eysenck’s personality inventory explain criminal behaviour?
Eysenck argues that personality is biologically determined in our genetics. He designed the EPI - which is a form of questionnaire whereby people’s responses are scored and can be placed on different parts of the Extroversion and Neuroticism scales. He later added a psychoticism scale. Eysenck suggested that people who score highly in extroversion, neuroticism and psychoticism would be most likely to commit crimes.
Explain extroversion and introversion.
Extroverts have a desire for excitement, are impulsive, optimistic and lose their temper easily - which is why they are likely to become criminal.
They are harder to condition, therefore unlikely to do as they’re told when they’re younger, or care about society disapproval when they’re older.
The reticular activating system inhibits sensations for extroverts, resulting in the need to seek stimulation. So they may be more likely top engage in criminal activities, especially those that bring excitement such as joyriding.
For introverts, the reticular activating system amplifies sensations therefore they seek far less stimulation. Introverts are reserved, non-aggressive, dislike noisy gatherings and tend to be more private people.
Explain neuroticism and stability.
Neurotic people tend to be nervous, jumpy, struggle coping with stress, moody, easily upset by others and prone to headaches and stomach pains. They tend to overreact to situations, which leads to criminal behaviour.
Neuroticism is controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which releases hormones such as adrenaline. The more reactive the ANS, the higher the score on the neurotic scale.
People who are highly neurotic have a sympathetic nervous system that is quick to turn on, which increases heart rate and stress. They also have a parasympathetic nervous system that is slow to turn off, which means that increased heart rate and stress is maintained for longer.
Stable people are emotionally stable, calm, even-tempered, unlikely to panic when stressed and are likely to respond to emergency situations in a productive manner. The opposite to neuroticism.
Explain psychoticism.
People who are psychotic are egocentric, impulsive, cold, lack empathy, aggressive, hostile, socially withdrawn and troublesome.
Psychoticism is also linked to levels of testosterone, which supports the fact that more males than females commit crime due to them having higher levels of testosterone, and therefore possibly psychoticism.
Psychotic people may commit criminal acts as they lack remorse, can’t feel emotions and may do whatever gives them pleasure.
What supporting evidence is there for personality as an explanation of criminal behaviour?
Boduszek found that higher levels of extroversion were a good predictor of the probability of repeat offenders committing violent acts when released from prison. The EPI test has been replicated many times and found to produce consistent results, suggesting it is a reliable method of measuring personality. This shows that extroverts are harder to condition, therefore they are more likely to become criminals.
Eysenck found that the criminal scored more highly on extroversion, neuroticism and psychoticism scales than non-criminals. They found that violent offenders scored higher for extroversion and psychoticism, but lower scores for neuroticism. This seems to show that personality is linked to behaviour, proving the theory is valid.
What issues and debates are there regarding EPI as an explanation for criminal behaviour?
Reductionist: biological explanation, ignoring socioeconomic factors such as upbringing and role models.
Low validity: data collection method is via self-reports which are subjective and may be biased due to social desirability.
Individual differences: are not taken into consideration - not everyone who scores highly on the extrovert and neurotic scales commit criminal acts.
How can social learning theory explain criminal behaviour?
Attention: an individual may observe an act of theft in real life or in the media, by a role model or someone they look up to. The crime has to catch the observer’s attention, for example, they may relate to the criminal in some way.
Retention: this information is stored in the individual’s LTM, as they rehearse what they have seen.
Reproduction: the individual them imitates the observed behaviour of theft by acting this out themselves in real life, providing they had the opportunity to do so and sufficient reinforcement.
Motivation: they may be praised or receive approval from a friend, which motivates them to continue with the learnt behaviour.
Vicarious Reinforcement: the observer may see thieves being rewarded and not punished - therefore imitate their behaviour to be rewarded in a similar way.
What supporting evidence is there for SLT as an explanation for criminal behaviour?
Huesmann found that early childhood exposure to TV violence predicted aggressive behaviour for both males and females in adulthood. This was true, even after controlling for other socioeconomic factors. This shows that those that pay attention to violent TV then go on to observe and imitate this.
Williams found that only 2 years after TV had been introduced, children were twice as aggressive when studied - compared to a nearby community of children who had been brought up with TV. Showing the media negatively affects aggressive behaviour and when it is first introduced, it is a novel thing that seems to increase aggression.
What issues and debates are there regarding SLT as an explanation for criminal behaviour?
Opposing theories come from the nature debate/biology. For example, aggression may be caused by brain injury which leads us to act more on impulse, which may explain why people lash out suddenly.
Low validity: lack of controlled scientific evidence in relation to crime as it would be unethical to get someone to observe and imitate a criminal in real life, as this would have negative effects both for the individual and society.
How is labelling theory linked to criminal and anti-social behaviour?
- Judges people based on stereotypes that may place them into a category as being labelled as criminal.
- Can be based on race, the area you live in and socioeconomic status to name a few.
- If an area is a known hotspot for crime, it is more likely to be targeted by the police, who are more readily available to make arrests - which can lead to labelling.
- A majority will label a minority in a way that places them outside the cultural norms, while labelling themselves in a superior position.
- It is easier to arrest usual suspects, for example people who live within a crime hotspot, or look a certain way may more likely be labelled criminal.
- Individuals who are labelled as criminal may get involved in criminal behaviour to claim back their rights.
- Can lead to retrospective labelling, which is when a person’s past is examined to find signs that should have predicted criminal behaviour.
Supporting evidence for labelling theory.
Besemer: children with a convicted parent are at a higher risk of being convicted of crime as they are focused on due to coming from a criminal family - showing how police target crime hotspots, whether it be an area or family and are more likely to make convictions as they label that particular group of people as criminal.
Besemer: children from poor socioeconomic backgrounds were often labelled as coming from criminal families as these are characteristics society associates with criminals - showing how labelling works based on stereotypes such as the area we live, or lower status.
Issues and Debates regarding labelling theory.
Ignore individual differences as it is based on stereotypes and assumes that all people who are similar for one reason or another will all be criminal.
Reductionist as it doesn’t take into consideration other factors that may influence criminal behaviour such as cognitive and biological aspects.
Not very scientific, based on people’s opinions so there is no quantitative data to show any of these factors are actually linked, meaning we cannot make well informed predictions.
Can lead to social control - a majority labelling a minority ‘outside the norm’ and treating them as such.
How can self-fulfilling prophecy be used to explain criminal behaviour?
- When a prediction that is made becomes true due to an expectation.
- Individuals are labelled as criminal and so live up to the expectation of this by engaging in criminal behaviour.
- Stages are as such: given the label of a criminal (eg. thief), treated as such through social interactions, label accepted by the individual, prophecy fulfilled (commits the act of theft).
- Projective labelling is then used to help predict future crime, such as labelling a similar person in the same way, so that the ‘usual suspect’ is targeted first.
Supporting evidence for self-fulfilling prophecy.
Ageton: interviewed boys about their sense of identity and self-concept. They were monitored and some were arrested, and those that were tended to adopt a delinquent identity leading them to commit further crimes. Showing that the boys who were arrested and treated as criminals, lived up to this expectation via committing crime.
Jahoda: found in the Ashanti people (named after the day they were born), boys named Monday were believed to be mild-mannered, whereas those named Wednesday were aggressive and short-tempered. Police arrested more boys born on Wednesday, than Monday - showing that they lived up to the label they were given by acting aggressively if Wednesday, and not so much if Monday.
Issues and Debates regarding self-fulfilling prophecy.
Ignores individual differences - not everyone will live up to the labels they are given.
Reductionist, ignores factors such as observation of role models and nature causes such as brain injury as an explanation of aggression.
Practical application as it suggests we can predict who is likely to become criminal based on the labels people are given by society early on in life.
Low validity: there is no scientific method of proving this to be true, therefore we cannot be sure that we are accurately measuring what we claim.
How does arousal affect the accuracy of EWT?
- Yerkes-Dodson Law states that a degree of arousal benefits performance, but above this optimal level performance deteriorates.
- Witnessing a crime = stressful/high arousal. Makes it difficult to accurately encode information, causing later recall to be inaccurate.
- Courtroom/interviewing = stressful/high arousal. Can affect performance therefore recall may not be correct.
- Too much/too little arousal = inaccurate performance.
