FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY - psychological explanations: Psychodynamic

Question 1

Briefly explain psychodynamic explanations

Answer 1

A perspective that describes different forces that operate on the mind and direct human behaviour and experience.

Question 2

What does the super ego do?

Answer 2

Provides us with moral sense

Question 3

Explain Ronald Blackburn (1993).

Answer 3

Argues that if superego is deficient then offending behaviour is inevitable because Id is not controlled.

Proposed three types of super ego:
1. The Weak super ego.
2. The deviant super ego.
3. The over harsh superego.

Question 4

Explain the weak super ego.

Answer 4

Caused by absent of same-sex parent in phallic stage.
Child cannot internalise a fully formed super ego as there is no opportunity for identification = criminal behaviour is likely as a child.

Question 5

Explain the deviant superego.

Answer 5

Caused by internalisation of deviant values from parents that would lead to offending behaviour.

eg boy raised by criminal father is not likely to associate guilt with wrongdoing

Question 6

Explain the over harsh superego.

Answer 6

Causes the individual to be crippled by guilt and anxiety due to over harsh parenting style. This unconsciously drives the individual to perform criminal acts to satisfy the superegos overwhelming need for punishment

Question 7

Which aspects of Bowlby’s theory can be used in a question on the Psychodynamic explanation?

Answer 7

Bowlby’s research to maternal deprivation using ‘44 Thieves’.

Frequent early disruption of the bond with the primary carer was common amongst the ‘affectionless psychopaths’. Such maternally deprived individuals are likely to engage in acts of delinquency and cannot develop close relationships with us others.

In 44 thieves - bowlby concluded the effects of maternal deprivation had caused affectionless and delinquent behaviour among the juvenile thieves

Question 8

Give strength of the psychodynamic approach

Answer 8

+ research support = for link between offending and superego
eg Goreta (1991) = found that disturbances in superego was formed in offenders. Each offender experienced unconscious guilt and need for self punishment due to harsh superego. = supports over harsh superego as a basis for offending.

+ psychodynamic explanations were some of the first to link early experience in childhood moral behaviour and offending. Draws attention to emotional basis of offending which is largely ignored by other explanations.

Question 9

Give limitations of the psychodynamic approach

Answer 9

-CENTRAL PRINCIPLES OF INADEQUATE SUPEREGO THEORY NOT SUPPORTED= According to Kochansk et al (2001) = we would expect harsh punitive parents to raise guilty and anxious children BUT it is seen that parents who rely on harsh forms of discipline raise children who are rebellious and really expressed feelings of guilt or self criticism.

• gender biased = Freud assumes that goal develop weaker super ego than boys because girls don’t experience intense emotion associated with castration anxiety = those easily identify with their mothers than boys are with their fathers = so women should be more prone to offending. However = it is seen that men are more in prison than women. = Freud’s theory has alpha bias.
• lewis (1954) found maternal deprivation was a poor predictor of future offending. Genetics and differential association theory of both alternative explanation = maternal deprivation may be one of the reasons, but not the only reason.