Forensic Psychology : Psychological Explanations Of Offending Behaviour & DAT Flashcards
What is Eysenck’s Theory of Criminal Personality
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.
What is extraversion
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.
What happens if you have high levels of extraversion
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.
What is neuroticism
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.
What is psychoticism
psychoticism, which relates to the degree to which somebody is anti-social, aggressive and uncaring.
More info for extraversion
-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
More info on neuroticism
-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
More info psychoticism
- 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
Research supporting eysenck’s theory of criminal personality?
● 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
Limitations of eysenck’s theory of criminal personality?
- 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
What is cognitive distortions?
- 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
What is hostile attribution bias?
● 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
Example of hostile attribution bias?
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
What research supports hostile attribution?
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
What is minimilsation
● 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
Research supporting minimalisation?
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
What is levels moral reasoning?
Level of moral reasoning refers to the ways that people think about and perceive right or wrong.
What is kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning?
- 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.
How many levels of kohlberg’s level of Moral reasoning
3 levels of moral reasoning and each stage represents a more advanced form of moral understanding
What is the pre conventional stage?
- Punishment and obedience orientation (avoidance of punishment)
- Instrumental-relativist orientation (based on what is rewarding).
What is the Conventional ?
- Good boy-good girl orientation (pleasing
others) - Law and order orientation (following rules).
What is the post- conventional stage?
- Social contract orientation (agreed by society)
- Universal principles orientation (own principles).
Research support for minimalisation
- 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
Moral reasoning advantage?
● 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
Moral reasoning limitation
● 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
What is the differential association theory?
Through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motivation for criminal behaviour
Who was the differential association theory proposed by?
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)
What are the 2 parts to Sutherland’s differential association theory?
- Learned attitudes towards crime
- Learning of specific criminal acts
What are learning attitudes towards crime?
-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
What 3 parts are needed for someone to commit a crime?
- High frequency
- High intensity
- high duration
Research supporting Farmington et al. (2006)
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
Differential association theory evaluation Advantages
- 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
Differential association theory evaluation Limitations
- 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?
