criminology psychology

Question 1

Brain dysfunction, injury and criminality- Williams et al 2010

Answer 1

Found that 60% of 196 prisoners had received some form of traumatic brain injury due to falling, car accident or sporting injury.
Youth brain injury and crime- 65% of 192 young prisoners had reported a head injury with 46% of these losing consciousness for over 10 minutes.
They suggested that these injuries affect development of temperment, social judgement and the ability to control impulses.

Question 2

Brain dysfunction, injury and criminality- Phineas Gage

Answer 2

Was in a railway accident in which a metal rod went through his PFC and his frontal lobe. Went from a likeable man to a irritable, violent drunk

Question 3

Brain dysfunction, injury and criminality- Grafman et al

Answer 3

Studied veterans who fought in the Vietnam war. Found that those veterans with brain damage to their frontal lobe were more likely to be aggressive, than those with no damage or damage to other parts of the brain. However did not look at their behaviour before study took place.

Question 4

Amygdala and criminality- Yang et al

Answer 4

Yang et al- compared 27 psychotic people with 27 controls and found those with psychoticism had about 17.1% less volume in the left amygdala and 18.9% less in the right amygdala.

Question 5

Amygdala and criminality- Raine et al

Answer 5

Studied 41 participants using PET scans pleading NGRI and matched them with a control group. Found there was abnormal functioning in the amygdala of p’s pleading NGRI compared to control

Question 6

Amygdala and criminality- Charles Whitman

Answer 6

Was studying at the University of Texas. In 1966 murdered his mother and wife. Then went to the University of Texas campus and shot 14 people and injured 32 others. Was found to have a cancerous tumour, size of a walnut in his amygdala.

Question 7

Personality and criminality- Eysenck

Answer 7

Developed the Eysenck Personality Inventory. Proposed that the three personality traits of Psychoticism, extraversion and neuroticism (PEN) could be applied to criminality. Argued that these individuals behaved in ways that maintained an optimal level of physiological arousal. Each indivdual has different arousal levels determined by the ARAS.

Did his own experiment which aimed to link certain criminal behaviour to personality traits. Had 156 prisoners aged 18-38. Divided into 5 groups based on their crimes: violent crimes, property crimes, confidence crimes, inadequate, residual crimes. Found that it is possible to classify offenders by personality type.
For example, Violent offenders had high extraversion scores.

Question 8

XYY and criminality- Jacobs et al

Answer 8

Suggested that men with XYY syndrome were more aggressive than XY men and there was an overrepresentation of XYY men in the prison population with 15 XYY prisoners for every 1000 prisoners (1 in 1000 men have XYY in general population)

Question 9

XYY and criminality- Daniel Hugon

Answer 9

Murdered a prostitute in a Paris Hotel. Upon examination was found that Hugon had XYY. This was used in defence in the court case to imply that his behaviour was pre-determined. Gained a lot of publicity for XYY.

Question 10

XYY and criminality- Theilgaard

Answer 10

Wanted to see if there was a particular gene responsible for XYY syndrome. Theilgaard took samples from 30,000 males born in 1940s. Results showed that these men with XYY had lower intelligence levels and were more aggressive (does not translate to criminality). Therefore, she found no conclusive evidence of a criminal gene.

Question 11

Re and Birkhoff- XYY and criminality

Answer 11

carried out a review of XYY syndrome and crime. Found that there is no statistical evidence that those with XYY are predisposed to criminal behaviour.

Question 12

williams 1986 social learning theory and crime

Answer 12

carried out a natural experiment looking at the effect of TV on the behaviour of children in a remote community in Canada where TV had not been available before. The introduction of TV increased children’s aggressive behaviours as rated by teachers and peers.

Question 13

Social Learning theory -Johnson et al

Answer 13

Found that there was a positive correlation between the amounts of TV children in NYC watched and increased aggressive behaviour. They also found that those who watched the most TV also committed the highest number of violent acts.

Question 14

social learning theory Bandura (1961,1962,1965, 1977)

Answer 14

Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models- Bandura, Ross and Ross 1961
Imitation of film aggressive models- Bandura, Ross and Ross 1963
Influence of models reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses- Bandura 1965

Attention, Retention, Reproduction, Motivation. Vicarious reinforcement.

Question 15

Labelling theory- Howard Becker

Answer 15

Becker suggests that labelling theory can explain crime because it proposes that what is “criminal” or “deviant” is decided by powerful social groups. Argues that the label is given, then treated accordingly to the label, the label then becomes master status and self concept changes as person accepts label.

Question 16

Labelling theory- Besemer et al (2013) official bias

Answer 16

Investigated the extent to which children of convicted parents had a higher risk of conviction of official bias towards “criminal families”. Besemer found that children from families labelled as criminal are more likely to be convicted than children from other families.

Question 17

Labelling theory- Chambliss et al (1973)

Answer 17

observed two groups of high school boys, the “Roughnecks and the Saints.” He found that the Roughnecks were more likely to be labelled as deviant by the police and were more likely to have legal action taken against them

Question 18

Self fulfilling prophecy- Rosenthal and Jacobsen- Pygmalion in the classroom

Answer 18

At the start of the academic year, teachers were told that 20 pupils in their class were going to bloom after an IQ test that they did. The 20 who had (falsely) been said to be bloomers did have improved IQ scores, both after one and two years, compared to others in the class. It was concluded that: teacher expectation affects student performance. Self fulfilling prophecy is true.

Question 19

Self fulfilling prophecy- Jahoda (1954)

Answer 19

The Ashanti people in Ghana were studied. They give boys “soul names” when they are born. Boys born on Monday were labelled as calm and peaceful. Boys named Wednesday were seen as aggressive and angry. 5 years later the courts were analysed and it was found that Monday boys were responsible for 6.9% of crime whereas Wednesday names were responsible for 22% of violent crime.

Question 20

self fulfilling prophecy- Madon et al

Answer 20

Found that when parents had negative expectations about their childrens likelihood of drinking alcohol, their children was likely to drink.

Question 21

Baldwin (1993)- police interviews and coercion

Answer 21

Argued that police interviews often used coercion and oppressive interviewing techniques, potentially leading to false confessions, wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice.

Question 22

Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984

Answer 22

Offers police officers an ethical code of practice and legal framework to follow when interviewing suspects to improve the evidentiary value of information gathered.

Question 23

PEACE model of interviewing

Answer 23

Based on the idea that suspects are more likely to cooperate with the police and hence, give a truer account if they feel secure and not threatened. There are 5 key principles:
-Planning and Preparation
-Engage and Explain
-Account
-Closure
-Evaluate

Question 24

Cognitive interview stages- Geiselman and Fisher

Answer 24

1- Context reinstatement which is based on the encoding specificity principle which states that reinstating the context increases the accessibility of the information stored in the memory.
2-Report everything- Allowing the witnesses to freely recall a narrative of the situation which allows previously excluded details to be told
3- Change the order in which event is recalled- Recalling events in reverse order can help a person avoid skipping over the information they have taken for granted as it interrupts schema activation
4- Change perspective- based on the assumption that in order to provide recall from a different perspective, witnesses will use different retrieval cues and so will be able to recall new information.

Question 25

evidence for support in effectiveness for the cognitive interview- Fisher et al

Answer 25

Found that Miami Police Department Detectives (in real situations) produced a 46% increase in recall over standard interviews with 90% accuracy. This shows it has high levels of ecological validity and high levels of reliability.

Question 26

Evidence for cognitive interview- Milne and Bull (2002)

Answer 26

Found that when used in combination, cognitive reinstatement and report everything was particularly useful in eliciting information.

Question 27

Evidence for cognitive model- Geiselman et al

Answer 27

Carried out a lab experiment comparing 3 different interview techniques for optimising eyewitness memory performance. Split 89 p’s into 3 groups of standard police interview, hypnosis interview and cognitive interview. P’s watched a violent film and then were asked videos about it. Geiselman found that there was a significant increase in the number of correct items recalled using cognitive interviewing 41 average compared to 29 average for police interviewing. He concluded that this was due to a guided approach which encouraged participants to remember the crime.

Question 28

eyewitness testimony definition

Answer 28

The evidence provided by someone that has seen the crime or event occurring.

Question 29

miscarriage of justice definition

Answer 29

means a failure of the justice system to attain the ends of the justice especially one that results in the conviction of an innocent person.

Question 30

Huff 1987- miscarriages of justice stat

Answer 30

concluded that 300 out of 500 (60%) wrongful convictions were due to false EWT.

Question 31

Pickel- weapon focus

Answer 31

Argued that it was the unusualness of the weapon that produced the weapon focus. Did a study where a raw chicken was presented in a hairdressers. The results showed similarly poor recall as a weapon.

Question 32

Fawcett et al- weapon focus

Answer 32

Undertook a meta-analysis and concluded that the presence of a weapon consistently demonstrated a negative effect on the EWT under both controlled and real situations.

Question 33

Loftus and Palmer- quantitive results of first experiment

Answer 33

Speeds were estimated incorrectly eg for a film of a crash at 20mph the mean estimate was 37.7mph. The mean speed estimates for the lowest verb (contacted) 31.8 and highest verb (smashed) 40.8 differed by 9mph.

Question 34

Loftus and Palmer- results of second study

Answer 34

Those in the smashed condition had a mean estimate that the cars were going 10.5mph compared to those in the hit condition that had a mean of 8mph. So the wording had a significant effect on the estimates on the mean speed.
In smashed condition 16 p’s believed that they had seen glass whereas in hit condition only 7 p’s believed they had seen glass.

Question 35

Yuille and Cutshall- case study

Answer 35

A case study of eyewitnesses memory of an armed robbery resulting in a shoot out and death in Canada. Witnesses had accurate recall even after 4 months and participants who rated themselves as more anxious tended to recall more details.

Question 36

Fein et al- pretrial publicity

Answer 36

Used the real OJ Simpson case and set up a mock jury to whether pre-trial publicity would affect a jurors decision. Jurors were more likely to say “guilty” if they had access to pre-trial publicity as around 80% of mock jurors said guilty given the pre-trial publicity.

Question 37

Steblay et al- pretrial publicity meta-analysis

Answer 37

Investigated the effect of pre-trial publicity on juror verdicts, using a meta-analysis. They found that jurors exposed to negative pre-trial publicity were significantly more likely to judge the defendant guilty compared to those exposed to less or no negative publicity.

Question 38

Ogloff and Vidmar- television pre-trial publicity

Answer 38

Looked at the effect of television as a form of pretrial publicity. They found that television publicity alone, or television and newspaper publicity, had a greater influence on potential jurors than just printed media alone. Demonstrates that television media has a significant influence on jurors decision making. Might be more concerning in the current times where television news is accessible 24hrs a day, so increasing potential for biases to occur.

Question 39

Sigall and Ostrove- attractiveness

Answer 39

Found that more attractive defendants received shorter sentences for burglary than unattractive defendants, but longer for fraud.

Question 40

Abwender and Hough- attractiveness leniency hypothesis

Answer 40

Attractiveness leniency hypothesis- attractive defendants are treated more favourably by juries than unattractive defendants. Found that female participants were more lenient towards an attractive defendant whereas male p’s were tougher for an attractive defendant.

Question 41

Halo effect

Answer 41

A form of stereotyping whereby our perception of a person that we meet is influenced by one particular positive trait or characteristic which makes us feel positively about them

Question 42

Dion et al

Answer 42

Found that physically attractive people are assumed to have other attractive properties. In her experiment she found that people who were physically attractive were more likely to be perceived as good, earn more money, be more intelligent and have more successful lives.

Question 43

Pfeifer and Ogloff- race and jury decision

Answer 43

In a mock trial, white university students were more likely to say that a black defendant was guilty than a white defendant for the same crime.

Question 44

Bradbury and Williams- race and jury decisions

Answer 44

Found that juries comprised of predominantly white jurors were more likely to convict black defendants as were juries made up of mostly Hispanic jurors. They suggested that this may be due to in-group and out-group bias.

Question 45

Skolnick and Shaw

Answer 45

Concluded through a lab based experiment that both the race of the juror and the race of the defendant are important. But whether the juror was black or white, the black defendants always received fewer guilty verdicts irrespective of the race of the juror. Could be due to socially desirable answers.

Question 46

Walsh and Milne- PEACE model ethical

Answer 46

Found that the PEACE build rapport and used ethical interview techniques when compared to non-peace models

Question 47

Fisher et al- cognitive interview, Miami police department

Answer 47

Found that Miami police department detectives (in real situations) produced a 46% increase in recall over standard interviews with 90% accuracy. Therefore, the ecological validity of the model is high and it was effective in real life situations.

Question 48

Milne and Bull (2002)- cognitive interview

Answer 48

Found that when used in combination, cognitive reinstatement and report everything was particularly effective for eliciting information.

Question 49

Geiselman- cognitive interview unreliability on children

Answer 49

That with children under six, accuracy of recall went down using CI. Therefore, he recommended that CI should only be used on children aged 8 or over. Young children seem to find the instructions confusing and as a result produce less reliable recall.

Question 50

Ireland- anger management

Answer 50

compared an experimental group of 50 participants to 37 control participants. Measured by a prison officers checklist and an anger management questionnaire. Found that over 92% of prisoners in experimental group showed improvement on one measure and 42% on two measures.

Question 51

Blackburn- 1993- anger management

Answer 51

Argued that anger management may help offenders control their anger in the short term but has little impact on long term offending rates

Question 52

Loftus, Loftus and Messo- weapon focus

Answer 52

36 students watched a slideshow of 18 scenes in a fast food restaurant. Each slide was shown for 1.5 secs. The control group saw the customer presenting a cheque to the cashier whilst the experimental group saw the customer taking out a gun. Eye movements were tracked by EOG. They found that 11% of the experimental group chose the right person at the cashier compared to 38.9% of the control group. Experimental group also looked at the gun significantly longer than control looked at cheque. Evidences that weapon focus does have a significant effect.

Question 53

Valentine and Mesout A01

Answer 53

The mean state anxiety score was significantly higher for females (52.8) than males (45.3). This also meant that women had less correct identifications as only 7 out of 27 women correctly identified the scary person out of a 9 person line up compared to 19/29 males.

-56 participants.

Question 54

Boduszek et al- personality

Answer 54

Found that there were high levels of extraversion associated amongst inmates with high levels of recidivism so supporting Eysencks theory and thus showing that Eysencks theory has validity as he said high levels of extraversion were associated with criminal behaviour.

Question 55

Lemert

Answer 55

Lemert (1962) found that cheque forgers had been forging cheques long before they were caught, so had been active in this crime before they had been labelled. He argues that their self-image was not affected by a label

Question 56

Mahoney and Dixon

Answer 56

Identified that a strong Birmingham accent was more likely to be perceived as guilty than a non Birmingham accent.

Question 57

Seggie

Answer 57

Looked at how Australian accents would affect jury decision making. Defendants with a standard accent were more likely to be convicted of white collar crimes in comparison to defendants with a broad accent who were more likely to be convicted of a blue collar crime.

Question 58

Lynn and Martin (Eysenck)

Answer 58

Looked at the PEN personality across 37 different countries. Found that women had higher neuroticism scores whilst men had higher extraversion and psychoticism scores.