Forensic psychology: biological explanation (neural)

Question 1

what is meant by a neural explanation in terms of criminality?

Answer 1

.differences/abnormalities of chemicals and structures in the brain can explain why people offend

Question 2

what are the 3 factors that support neural research into the explanation of criminality?

Answer 2

.APD
.prefrontal cortex
.mirror neurons

Question 3

what is meant by APD?

Answer 3

.antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy)

Question 4

how is APD used to support the neural explanation of criminality?

Answer 4

.APD is associated with reduced emotional responses and lack of empathy for the feelings of others. This is a condition that characterises many convicted criminals.
.therefore suggesting people with APD are likely to commit crimes

Question 5

who conducted research into the pre-frontal cortex to support the neural explanation of criminality?

Answer 5

.Raine

Question 6

what sample did Raine use in his study?

Answer 6

.41 murderers
.41 matched control group of non-murderers
.matched on age, sex and if they had schizophrenia

Question 7

what did raine do?

Answer 7

.conducted many studies of the APD brain

Question 8

what did raine report?

Answer 8

.there are several dozen brain-imaging studies demonstrating that individuals with anti-social personalities have receded activity in the prefrontal cortex

Question 9

what is the function of the prefrontal cortex?

Answer 9

.regulates emotional behaviour

Question 10

what did Raine do to investigate the APD brain?

Answer 10

injected tracer into criminals vs non-criminals and used PET scans to look at the differences in the activity of the brain

Question 11

what did Raine and his colleagues find (2000) from injecting tracer into criminals and non-criminals?

Answer 11

.found an 11% reduction in the volume of grey matter in the prefrontal cortex of people with ADP compared to controls

Question 12

what evidence that comes from mirror-neurons supports the neural explanation of criminality?

Answer 12

.mirror neurons allows you to empathise with others
.criminals have a dysfunctional mirror-neuron system meaning they don’t care about other people nor how they feel

Question 13

what are the negatives to the neural explanation of criminality?

Answer 13

.reductionist -only focuses/narrows it down to biological factors and doesn’t take into account potential environmental factors, oversimplifying the human body and how it’s works
.correlation doesn’t mean causation -PET scans only show a difference, they don’t explain why or what the cause could be for the behaviour
-PET scans also don’t show wether the change happened before or after the crime

Question 14

what are the positives to the neural explanation of criminality?

Answer 14

.better explanation that the atavistic approach -conflicting evidence of the atavistic explanation (couldn’t replicate lombrosso findings)
.the data collected is scientific and objective increasing its validity as its accurate