Explanations of crime and anti-social behaviour

Question 1

Williams et al (2010) found…

Answer 1

60% of the 196 prisoners they investigated had some form of traumatic brain injury, e.g. falling, sports head injury, car accidents

Question 2

drunkenness impairs the functioning of the cerebellum - linked to movement - so may cause… and affects the pre-frontal cortex, leading to…

Answer 2

…falls and accidents, which might result in brain injury… …leading to impulsive behaviour, lack of impulse control and so increases

Question 3

why is correlation between brain injury and criminality not necessarily causal?

Answer 3

other factors may co-exist - comorbidity, e.g. many offenders have a history of drug abuse and may have pre-existing personality disorders, or been exposed to violence as a child - all factors known to increase risk of criminality

Question 4

what is brain localisation?

Answer 4

different areas of the brain are linked to different functions

Question 5

damage to the amygdala may result in…

Answer 5

an increase in impulsivity, irritability or aggression

Question 6

Williams et al (2010) concluded that…

Answer 6

impairment in the brain regions affected by the trauma could have contributed to criminality

Question 7

why were Kreutzer et al (1991) unable to categorically prove or disprove a causal connection between traumatic brain injury and violence?

Answer 7

their investigation of 74 patients found that 20% had been arrested pre-injury and 10% post-injury

Question 8

in subsequent research, Kreutzer et al (1995) concluded that…

Answer 8

without the presence of a substance abuse history, traumatic brain injury was not a risk factor for criminal behaviour

Question 9

what is the amygdala responsible for and what would damage to this area cause?

Answer 9

responsible for controlling emotions - hence damage to this area may result in very limited emotional responses or excessive reactions to emotional stimuli due to an inability to control or regulate emotional responses

Question 10

what is a psychopath?

Answer 10

psychopaths have reduced to no emotional responses to situations or events that would provoke an emotional response in a non-psychopath

Question 11

who is Robert Hare?

Answer 11

a psychologist who is an authority on psychopaths and had developed a psychopath checklist or scale

Question 12

what does the book “Snakes in suits: When psychopaths go to work” by Babiak and Hare (2006) demonstrate?

Answer 12

how psychopaths are not just found among the criminal population

Question 13

who did Pardini et al (2014) find to have smaller amygdalae than controls?

Answer 13

psychopaths, as well as those with higher than average levels of aggression

Question 14

what does “sham rage” refer to?

Answer 14

Cannon and Britton (1925) coined this term to describe an emotional state in animals

Question 15

what did the Raine et al (1997) study show?

Answer 15

significant differences in the brain structure of murderers compared to non-murderers, especially in the functioning of the amygdala

Question 16

what did Glenn et al (2009) study?

Answer 16

the neural circuitry underpinning amygdala functioning, not just the size of the amygdala, using fMRI scanning

Question 17

what did Glenn et al (2009) find?

Answer 17

psychopaths tended to have reduced amygdala functioning during moral decision-making, suggesting deficits in brain regions linked to moral reasoning, so psychopaths would worry less about causing pain to others

Question 18

what did Narabayashi et al (1963) do?

Answer 18

carried out psycho surgery on human patients with aggressive behaviour, severing their amygdala from the rest of the limbic system, resulting in a mood-stabilising effect in the majority of patients over time

Question 19

how is diathesis-stress related to environment?

Answer 19

environment (i.e. external stress) can have an impact, or mediate the effects of diathesis, i.e. a biological susceptibility or factors

Question 20

not everyone with a smaller amygdala acts in an excessively aggressive, psychopathic way and not everyone who acts aggressively or without emotion is a psychopath, for example…

Answer 20

neurologist James Fallon in 2006 identified his own brain as a psychopathic brain, yet he does not exhibit criminal behaviour or tendencies

Question 21

what did Danish researcher Alice Theilgaard (1984) note?

Answer 21

although there is a marginally higher rate of XYY men in the prison population than the general population, it is only very small and therefore cannot be the only reason for criminal behaviour amongst men, otherwise the proportion would be much higher

Question 22

what did Stockholm et al (2012) suggest?

Answer 22

even when there is a link between XYY syndrome and criminality, it tends to come from unfavourable living conditions, not from genes

Question 23

what did Re and Birkhoff (2015) conclude?

Answer 23

there is no statistical evidence to suggest that XYY syndrome predisposes males, just because of genotype, to aggressive and deviant behaviour

Question 24

what did Brunner (1993) study?

Answer 24

a group of men in the same large family in the Netherlands and noted that all of them carried a faulty version of a gene responsible for the production of an enzyme called monoamine oxidase A (MAOA)

Question 25

who did Capsi et al (2002) study?

Answer 25

a cohort of people whose lives had been monitored from the age of 3 to 26 through surveys, family reports, tests and interviews, and found MAOA alone had no large effect, but definitely modulated the impact of early-life maltreatment on later anti-social behaviour

Question 26

how many Caucasians have the low activity version of the MAOA gene?

Answer 26

34% but 1/3 Caucasians do not commit crime

Question 27

how can twins be used to study genetic explanations for criminality?

Answer 27

monozygotic (MZ) twins share 100% of their genetic material, dizygotic (DZ) twins share 50%; if criminal behaviour is linked to genes we would expect to see a higher concordance rate in MZ twins compared with DZ ones

Question 28

what did Slutske et al (1997) show?

Answer 28

a higher incidence of conduct disorder in twins when compared to singletons

Question 29

what did Hutchings and Mednick (1997) find?

Answer 29

85.7% of male adoptees with a criminal or minor offences record had a biological father with a criminal record, compared with adoptees without a criminal record who had a criminal father 31.1% of the time

Question 30

what did Hans Eysenck carry out extensive research into?

Answer 30

the personality traits of an individual, i.e. the enduring characteristics that make us who we are and influence our decisions and behaviour; these traits are thought to be relatively fixed and change little through our lifetime

Question 31

which 3 characteristics did Eysenck think were influenced by our biology and could explain criminality?

Answer 31

psychoticism (P), extraversion (E) and neuroticism (N) - he described this as the PEN personality

Question 32

what 2 dimensions did Eysenck argue there were to personality?

Answer 32

extrovert-introvert and neurotic-stable - he later added a third: psychotic-normal

Question 33

what is the extrovert-introvert dimension determined by?

Answer 33

the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS)

Question 34

what is the neurotic-stable dimension controlled by?

Answer 34

the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) which controls the release of stress hormones: adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol, and regulates the ‘fight-or-flight’ response

Question 35

what is a personality disorder?

Answer 35

when an individual’s way of thinking, feeling or relating to others differs significantly from that of a person without a personality disorder

Question 36

how does antisocial personality disorder surface?

Answer 36

as a conduct disorder before the age of 15 - repetitive and persistent pattern of seriously antisocial behaviour, usually criminal in nature and marked by extreme callousness - manifested in truancy, running away from home, delinquency and general belligerence

Question 37

how does antisocial personality disorder surface in adulthood?

Answer 37

in adulthood the person is indifferent to holding down a job, being a responsible partner or parent, planning for the future or even tomorrow, staying on the right side of the law

Question 38

what writings is psychopathy closely linked to?

Answer 38

the writings of Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity (1976)

Question 39

how is the DSM criteria for antisocial personality disorder different to Cleckley’s criteria for psychopathy?

Answer 39

Cleckley’s criteria for psychology refer less to antisocial behaviour per se and more to the psychopath’s thoughts and feelings

Question 40

what are some examples of symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder?

Answer 40

need to be admired, self-obsessed, exploit others to get what they want, think they are most important person present, grandiose view of their own uniqueness and abilities, pre-occupied with fantasies of great success, require constant attention and excessive admiration, believe they can be understood only by special or high-status people, poor interpersonal relationships due to lack of empathy, feelings of envy, excessive arrogance, exploitation of others, sense of entitlement, expect others to do special, not-to-be reciprocated favours for them

Question 41

what are symptoms of paranoid personality disorder?

Answer 41

suspicious, distrustful of others, take criticism very personally, hold grudges even when they themselves are at fault, often hostile and react angrily to perceived insults, constantly on lookout for possible signs of trickery and abuse, expect to be mistreated or exploited by others, reluctant to confide in others and often blame them, extremely and often unjustifiably jealous, preoccupied with unjustified doubts about loyalty and trustworthiness of others