LO2, biological theories, physiological

Question 1

biological

Answer 1

criminals are biologically differnt from non, this difference causes them to commit crime

Question 2

physiological

Answer 2

that the physical features of crimianls differ from non criminals

Question 3

lombroso

Answer 3

• 1876
• people are born crimianls and are physically different from non crimianls
• criminals are more likely to have acquline noses, large jaws, long arms, and low sloping foreheads
• atavism, the idea that criminals are ‘throwbacks’ to more primitive stage of evolution, pre-social, impulsive, reduced sensitivity to pain
• he spent years recording the details of heads, faces and sketches of 383 dead and 3839 living

Question 4

Lombroso advantages

Answer 4

• the first person to study criminality, scientifically using objective measurements to gather evidence
• his research shows the importance of examining clinical and historical records of criminals
• helps to focus on how prevention not punishment, ‘free choice’ isn’t always crime and is determined by biological factors

Question 5

Lombroso disadvantages

Answer 5

• he didnt use a control group to see if the same features coul be found in non criminals
• gender bias, didnt study female criminals but saw that women were less evolved than men, low intelligence made women less likely to become criminals
• not everyone with atavistic features is a criminal and not all criminals have atavistic features

Question 6

Sheldon

Answer 6

• looked at body types and compared with likelihood of criminality
• somatypes are body types that are related to criminality
• endomorphs: apple/rounded/soft/lacking muscle, sociable, outgoing
• ectomorphs: thin/fragile/lack fat and muscle, self conscious LEAST LIKELY TO BECOME CRIMIANLS
• mesomorphs: muscular/strong/broad shoulders, advertourus MOST LIKELY TO BECOME CRIMIANLS

Question 7

Sheldon advantages

Answer 7

• reliability, other studies have replicated Sheldon’s findings, Glueck and glueck 1956 found that 60% of the offenders in their delinquent sample were mesomorphs compared to 31% in the non delinquent sample
• used a control group of 200 of non-offenders to compare his results to
• the most serious delinquent in sheldons sample were the ones with the most extremely mesomorphic body shapes

Question 8

sheldon disadvanatges

Answer 8

• criminals may build a mesomorphic body shape as a result of needing to be physically tough to succeed, if so, criminality causes somatype rather than somotype causing criminality, e.g, builders
• mesomorphs are more likely to be labelled, as they fit the ‘tough guy’ sterotype, resulting in self fuffilling prophecy, or more likely to attract people attention than and get caught than other somatotypes
• social class maybe true abuse of offending, convcited criminals are mainly working class males who are most likely to be in manual jobs where they acquire and athletic build

Question 9

skinner

Answer 9

• if behaviour results in a reward it will be reprated. if results are undesriable outcome it will not = differential reinforcing theory
• operatnt conditioning, learning by consequence
• suggests that crime must therefore have more rewards for crimianls than punishments
• rewards for killing, money, friendship, emotion, respect
• rat in box

Question 10

skinner advantages

Answer 10

• logical that crime is more rewarded than punishing outcomes for an individual, they will be more likely to offend
• differntial reinforcement theroy suggests that crime must therefore have more rewards for criminals than punishments

Question 11

skinner disadvantages

Answer 11

• ignores internal mental processes, such as thinking, personal values and attidues, it only explains criminal behaviour solely in terms of external rewards and punishemnts
• animals arent the same as humans, the evidence is largey based on animal studies in labs, not to generalisbale to how humans behave in real life situations

Question 12

bandura

Answer 12

• SLT
• our behaviour is learned by imitating others
• we are more likely to imitate people of higher status than us, and if we see them being rewarded for their behvaiour we will imitate it
• bandura bobo doll study, children most likely to imiatte violent adult model when they saw them rewarded, they imitate the behvaiour they see in social situtaions

Question 13

bandura strengths

Answer 13

• SLT takes into account the fact humans are social beings and learn from the experiences of othjers not just from our own direct experiences
• shows that children who observed agressive behaviour being rewarded, imitated that behvaiour, shows the importance of role models in learning

Question 14

bandura weaknesses

Answer 14

• based on lab experiments which are in artifivcal settings and the findings might not be valid in real life situations
• ignores free will of humans, deterministic