Forensic Psychology Flashcards
What is an atavistic form?
A biological approach to offending that attributes criminal activity to genetic throwbacks or a primitive subspecies ill-suited to conforming to modern society.
How are atavistic individuals distinguishable?
They are distinguishable by particular facial and cranial characteristics.
What are genes?
Genes consist of DNA strands that produce ‘instructions’ for general and specific physical features of an organism.
What physical features do genes influence?
Genes influence general physical features (such as eye colour and height) and specific physical features (such as neurotransmitter levels and size of brain structures).
How do genes impact psychological features?
Genes may impact psychological features such as intelligence and mental disorders.
How are genes transmitted?
Genes are transmitted from parents to offspring, i.e., inherited.
What is a neural explanation?
A neural explanation is any explanation of behaviour (and its disorders) in terms of (dys)functions of the brain and nervous system.
What brain structures are involved in neural explanations?
Neural explanations include the activity of brain structures such as the prefrontal cortex.
Which neurotransmitters are relevant in neural explanations?
Relevant neurotransmitters in neural explanations include serotonin and dopamine.
What is the criminal personality?
A feature of Eysenck’s theory of crime, characterized by high scores in extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.
What are the traits of a criminal personality?
Cold and unfeeling, and likely to engage in offending behavior.
How does a criminal personality respond to conditioning?
A criminal personality cannot easily be conditioned.
What is moral reasoning?
Moral reasoning refers to the way a person thinks about right and wrong. It is presumed that such thinking then applies to moral behaviour.
How does the level of moral reasoning affect behaviour?
The higher the level of moral reasoning, the more behaviour is driven by a sense of what is right, rather than just avoiding punishment or disapproval.
What are cognitive distortions?
Cognitive distortions are faulty, biased, and irrational ways of thinking that lead to inaccurate and usually negative perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world.
What is hostile attribution bias?
Hostile attribution bias is the tendency to judge ambiguous situations or the actions of others as aggressive and/or threatening when they may not be.
What is minimalisation?
Minimalisation is a type of deception that involves downplaying the significance of an event or emotion. It is a common strategy for dealing with feelings of guilt.
What is differential association theory?
An explanation for offending which proposes that, through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for offending behaviour.
What is the key term related to unconscious forces in the mind?
Psychodynamic explanations
A perspective that describes the different forces (dynamics), most of which are unconscious, that operate on the mind and direct human behaviour and experience.
What is custodial sentencing?
A decision made by a court that punishment for a crime should involve time being in custody - prison (incarceration) or in some other closed therapeutic and/or educational institution, such as a psychiatric hospital.
What is recidivism?
Reoffending, a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behaviour. In the context of crime, it refers to a convicted offender who reoffends, usually repeatedly.
What is behaviour modification?
An application of the behaviourist approach to treatment, such as the management of offenders in penal institutions.
What principles is behaviour modification based on?
It is based on the principles of operant conditioning.
What is the general aim of behaviour modification?
To replace undesirable behaviours with more desirable ones through the selective use of positive and/or negative reinforcement.
