Forensic Psychology : Psychological Explanations Of Offending Behaviour & DAT

Question 1

What is Eysenck’s Theory of Criminal Personality

Answer 1

Hans Eysenck’s theory of criminal personality suggests that personality is biologically based and that personality traits include dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism that can be measured using a personality questionnaire.

Question 2

What is extraversion

Answer 2

Extraversion refers to a biological need individuals have for high or low levels of environmental stimulation, determined by the level of arousal in a person’s central and autonomic nervous system.

Question 3

What happens if you have high levels of extraversion

Answer 3

This means that people with high levels of extraversion have a low level of arousal, meaning they require more environmental stimulation to fuel their excitement. In the context of forensic psychology, this environmental stimulation may include criminal behaviour.

Question 4

What is neuroticism

Answer 4

Neuroticism refers to the stability of personality and a high neuroticism score would represent someone who is more reactive and volatile and perhaps more likely to engage in offending behaviour.

Question 5

What is psychoticism

Answer 5

psychoticism, which relates to the degree to which somebody is anti-social, aggressive and uncaring.

Question 6

More info for extraversion

Answer 6

-Extraversion is due to chronically under-aroused nervous system which leads to sensations seeking
-This results in the impulsive and nervous nature
-Extraversions do not condition easily and do not learn from mistakes
-The thrill of committing a crime might draw them to offending behaviour

Question 7

More info on neuroticism

Answer 7

-Have greater activation and lower thresholds within the Limbic System
- Over-aroused SNS (Sympathetic Nervous System) where emotional states are regulated (such as fear and aggression)
- React swiftly and strongly to stressors
- Instability means their behaviour is difficult to predict with high levels of emotion
- More likely to commit a crime in an emotionally charged situation

Question 8

More info psychoticism

Answer 8

• Excess of dopamine neurons causing overproduction of dopamine
• Leads to inhibition of impulses during synaptic transmission potentially causing aggressive behaviour
• Hormones such as testosterone also implicated in the psychotic personality
• Increased levels of testosterone
• More likely to commit a crime as they are aggressive and lack conscience

Question 9

Research supporting eysenck’s theory of criminal personality?

Answer 9

● Compared 2070 male prisoners score on EPQ and 2422 male controls
● Sub-divided into age group (16-69 years)
● Across all age groups, prisoners recorded higher scores on EPQ than controls

Question 10

Limitations of eysenck’s theory of criminal personality?

Answer 10

• Farrington et al (1982) - reviewed 16 studies and found that offenders tend to score highly on P and N measures but NOT always on E
• Cultural bias - Eysenck studied mainly white western European participants, guilty of property crimes (doesn’t measure personality for serious crimes)
• Social desirability - may lack validity
• Oversimplification of the classification of criminals

Question 11

What is cognitive distortions?

Answer 11

• Faulty, irrational ways of thinking which can cause individuals to perceive themselves, others or the world inaccurately, and usually negatively
• With criminal behaviour, such distortions allow an offender to deny or rationalise their behaviour

Question 12

What is hostile attribution bias?

Answer 12

● What we think when we observe someoneʼs actions and inferring what these actions mean
● Violence is caused by the perception that other peopleʼs acts are aggressive
● People may be perceived as being confrontational when they are not, this may trigger disproportionate violent response
● When someone has a learning towards always thinking the worst
● In the case of offenders, such negative interpretations can be linked to their aggressive or violent behaviour

Question 13

Example of hostile attribution bias?

Answer 13

A guy pulling up his trousers you experience negative thoughts thinking he will fight you or do something and show aggressive behaviour towards the person despite them not doing anything

Question 14

What research supports hostile attribution?

Answer 14

Wegrzyn et al. (2017)
Participants: 62 males (30 violent criminals, 15 with a history of sexual abuse and 17 controls)
Method: they were shown 20 ambiguous faces (10 male and 10 female) and asked to rate fear and anger
Findings: the violent criminals rated the faces as angry more often than the control group

Question 15

What is minimilsation

Answer 15

● Downplaying the seriousness of an offence
● Some will underplay their offences
● Helps the individual to accept the
consequences of their behaviour
● Research suggests that individuals
who commit sexual offences are particularly prone to minimalisation

Question 16

Research supporting minimalisation?

Answer 16

Barbaree (1991) - among 26 imprisoned rapists, 54% denied they have committed an offence at all and 40% minimised the harm they had caused the victim

Pollock and Hashmall (1991) - 35% of child molesters in their sample argued the crime they have committed was non-sexual and 36% claimed the victim had consented

Question 17

What is levels moral reasoning?

Answer 17

Level of moral reasoning refers to the ways that people think about and perceive right or wrong.

Question 18

What is kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning?

Answer 18

• It is a developmental theory that looks at the ways in which individuals grow in their understanding of moral decision-making and behaviour.
  -Kohlberg argued that this happens in a staged process where moral reasoning becomes more complex and abstract as a child ages.
• Importantly, he argued that it is usually complete by the time the child is 9 or 10 years old, which is in line with the age of criminal responsibility in the UK, which is set at 10 years old.

Question 19

How many levels of kohlberg’s level of Moral reasoning

Answer 19

3 levels of moral reasoning and each stage represents a more advanced form of moral understanding

Question 20

What is the pre conventional stage?

Answer 20

1. Punishment and obedience orientation (avoidance of punishment)
2. Instrumental-relativist orientation (based on what is rewarding).

Question 21

What is the Conventional ?

Answer 21

3. Good boy-good girl orientation (pleasing
   others)
4. Law and order orientation (following rules).

Question 22

What is the post- conventional stage?

Answer 22

5. Social contract orientation (agreed by society)
6. Universal principles orientation (own principles).

Question 23

Research support for minimalisation

Answer 23

• Kohlberg conducted a longitudinal study over a period of 12 years
• 75 young American males aged 10-16 years old at the start of the stage and were aged 22-28 by the end
• 10% of adults reach the post-conventional level
• Majority of criminals do not progress from the
  pre-conventional level of moral reasoning
• Kohlberg (1973) - found that a group of violent youths were significantly lower in their moral development than non-violent youths

Question 24

Moral reasoning advantage?

Answer 24

● Demonstrated that his moral stages were universal as he later studied children in Britain, Mexico, Turkey and USA, amongst others
● Palmer & Hollin (1998) - compared moral reasoning between 210 female non-offenders, 112 male non-offenders and 126 convicted offenders. The offenders showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-delinquent groups
● Thornton & Reid (1982) - pre-conventional moral reasoning tends to be associated with crimes such as robbery
● Understanding this can be useful in shaping intervention programmes

Question 25

Moral reasoning limitation

Answer 25

● Gibbs proposed an alternative theory - only two levels of moral reasoning
● The level of moral reasoning may depend on the kind of offence committed
● Does moral reasoning necessarily lead to moral behaviour? Theory is based on thinking, not our actual actions
● Sampling issues - much of Kohlbergʼs research focuses on males

Question 26

What is the differential association theory?

Answer 26

Through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motivation for criminal behaviour

Question 27

Who was the differential association theory proposed by?

Answer 27

Sutherland (1939)
- Offending is learned in the same way as everything else
- Offending is learnt through socialisation
- Pro-criminal attitudes/behaviours occur through association and relationships with other people - we learn our norms and values from them (including deviant ones)

Question 28

What are the 2 parts to Sutherland’s differential association theory?

Answer 28

• Learned attitudes towards crime
• Learning of specific criminal acts

Question 29

What are learning attitudes towards crime?

Answer 29

-If the number of pro-criminal attitudes a person acquires outweighs the number of
anti-criminal attitudes, they will go on to offend
- You just need to know : frequency, intensity and duration of their exposure to criminal & non-criminal norms and values

Question 30

What 3 parts are needed for someone to commit a crime?

Answer 30

• High frequency
• High intensity
• high duration

Question 31

Research supporting Farmington et al. (2006)

Answer 31

Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development
- Followed 411 males (all working in working-class, deprived inner-city area of London)
-Longitudinal study (between 8 and 50 years old)
- in By the end, 41% had at least one conviction
- Most significant childhood risk factors (between 8 and 10) for later offending is family criminality, risk-taking, low school attainment, poverty, poor parenting
- Suggests that offenders will come from families and groups who have pro-criminal norms

Question 32

Differential association theory evaluation Advantages

Answer 32

• Can answer for more types of crimes for all races, gender and social groups
• Moved the emphasis away from early biological accounts of crime - more
  realistic approach
• Osborne and West (1979) found that where there is a father with a criminal conviction, 40% of the sons had committed a crime by age 18 compared to 13% of sons on non-criminal fathers

Question 33

Differential association theory evaluation Limitations

Answer 33

• Doesn’t account for individual differences - some people are more easily led than others
• Impossible to test - how do you count up someone’s associations and influences accurately?
• Thought to be more effective for ‘smaller’ crimes
• What about biological factors? The Diathesis-stress model takes into account a
  wider range of approaches
• Correlation not causation - who is influencing who?