Lecture 1: Organisation and Theories of Offending Flashcards
Key definitions
- Aggression = purposeful behaviour aimed at harming another person either physically/psychologically
- Violence = physically injuring someone
Attachment theory
-Early maternal deprivation leads to emotional detachment, separation anxiety and anger
- Bowlby 44 thieves (1944):
- -> 40% experience separation for at least 6 months
- -> 1/3 described as psychopaths
Study:
- Meta analysis
- Found offenders were significant more insecure, anxious, avoidant in attachments
- Offenders with mental disorders were more insecure
Anxious vs Avoidance characteristics
- Avoidance = weaker moral concerns
- Avoidance mediated by discomfort and decreased empathy
- Anxious (resistant) = stronger moral concerns
- Anxious = mediated by need to belong and empathy
SLT
- Attention –> retention –> reproduction –> motivation
- BOBO doll study = Bandura (1968)
Role of parents
Study:
-Parents use of physical punishment at ages 7 and 11 predicted later antisocial behaviour
Haller et al (2014):
-Maltreatment affects aggressive behaviour displayed in adulthood, emotional response to social challenges and neuronal mechanisms activated by conflict
Intervention study
Study:
- 78 early family intervention training program
- DV = child behaviour problems
- Cohens d = 0.38 = small effect size
- 32/100 in experimental offended
- 50/100 in control offended
The integrated cognitive antisocial potential theory (ICAP)
Farrington 2005
- Antisocial potential
- Criminogenic factors
ICAP: Farrington 2005
- UK based longitudinal study
- Found antisocial behaviour is versatile = number of symptoms not specific one
- Integrates range of early risk factors
- Integrates ideas from other theories
- BUT focuses on offending by males in lower classes
ICAP: antisocial potential
- Its the potential to commit antisocial acts
- Start with AP which translates to AB
- Translation depends on cognition and context
- Absolute levels of AP vary with age
ICAP: criminogenic factors
Long term (life-time) between individual factors:
- People ordered on continuum from low to high
- High = more adverse environmental and psychological predispositions
Short term (situational) within individual factors:
- Situational factors
- Can develop to long term potential
Psychopathy
- Severe personality disorder characterised by high levels of criminality and aggression
- Psychiatric patients characterised by: Facade of normalness, callous, promiscuity, superficial charm (Cleckley, 1941)
Measurement of psychopathy
- Hare (1991-2003)
- Classified different characteristics into 2 facets and then further divided them into 2 more
Factor 1: prototypical:
- Facet 1 = interpersonal
- Facet 2 = affective
Factor 2: acquired:
- Facet 3 = lifestyle
- Facet 4 = antisocial
Measurement of psychopathy: factor 1
- Superficial charm (1)
- Manipulative (1)
- Lack remorse/guilt (2)
- Callous/lack empathy (2)
- Failure to accept responsibility (2)
-Normally born with it
Measurement of psychopathy: factor 2
- Need for stimulation (3)
- Lack of realistic long term goals (4)
- Impulsivity (3)
- Juvenile delinquency (3)
-Typically acquired through accident or upbringing
Psychopathy: reoffending rates
- Found general reoffending = 3X higher for psychopaths
- Violent reoffending 4X higher
Three factor solution for becoming a psychopath
- Boldness = social potency, fearless
- Meanness = callous, aggressivness
- Disinhibition = impulsivity, risk-taking
Two factor solution for becoming a psychopath
Karpman (1941)
- Disagreed with 3 factor model
- Characterises into primary and secondary psychopaths
Primary psychopath:
- Agrees with Cleckley’s description
- Callous, unemotional, lack of empathy, correlated with PCL-R factor 1
Secondary psychopath:
- Disagrees with Cleckley’s description
- Antisocial, anxious, correlated with PCL-R factor 2
Types of empathy
Cognitive empathy:
- Ability to take another perspective
- Logical understanding
Affective empathy:
- Refers to feeling what another person is feeling
- Emotional resonance
Both can break down - will have different consequences
What happens when empathy breaks down?
- Autism = breakdown in cognitive empathy
- Psychopathy = breakdown in affective empathy
Types of aggression/violence
Instrumental/proactive:
- Pre-mediated and aimed at obtaining preferred outcome
- Linked to callousness and lack of empathy
- Linked with primary more than secondary
Reactive:
- An impulsive reaction to others actions
- Linked with secondary more than primary
Deficit in psychopaths
-Skin conductance response
- Fear recognition:
- -> 20 images of increasing intensity
- -> Psychopaths had reduced sensitivity to fearful expressions
- Reduced gaze to eye region:
- -> Importance of reading emotions from eye area
- -> Children with CU traits show reduced eye gaze
- -> Eye gaze correlated with fear accuracy
- ->Another study = found psychopaths fixate on the lower part of face, eye fixations positively correlated with fear and anger accuracy
Why can’t psychopaths recognise fear?
- Amygdala
- Its deep in temporal lobe
- Processes emotional expression
- Important for aversive conditioning
- Controls automatic responses associated with fear
Treatment for psychopathy
-Psychopaths with negative response to treatment, sexually reoffended faster than others
- People who didn’t complete treatment more likely to reoffend
- Successful completed reoffended by less severely
