psychological explanations

Question 1

the criminal personality

Answer 1

extraverts, neurotics, psychotic

Question 2

extravert

Answer 2

underactive autonomous nervous system seek more arousal and therefore engage is risk-taking, dangerous, and maybe more criminal activities
- people high in extraversion are less easily conditioned and do not learn from their mistakes as easily or to avoid anti-social behaviour

Question 3

neurotics

Answer 3

nervous, jumpy and over anxious. may be unpredictable and tend to overreact to situations of threath

Question 4

psychotic

Answer 4

aggressive and lack empathy, they can be cold and unfeeling and are likely to engage in criminal behaviour

Question 5

biology + environment

Answer 5

• personality has a biological basis, however it’s also affected by conditioning. extraverts find it difficult to learn how to behave appropriately and are less likely to learn from unpleasant consequences of behaviour
• criminals are unable to delay gratification
• criminals are more impatient, score highly on extraversion + neuroticism and are difficult to condition

Question 6

evaluation - simplistic

eysneck

Answer 6

• too simplistic to consider personality in terms of just two dimensions (e&n)
• more modern theory called the five factor model (digman) suggests other personality dimensions such as openness to experience, agreeable and consciousness
• therefore reduces validity of eysenck’s explanation of personality as a cause of criminal behaviour

Question 7

evaluation - self-report

eysneck

Answer 7

• personality tests lack validity because they depend on self-report data
• people tend to have social desirability bias so their answers may not be truthful. the epq consists of forced-choice items which must be answered yes or no
• this means the findings of the epq may lack validity and not reflect people’s responses in everyday life. this reduces the credibility of the research that supports and underpins eysenck’s theory of criminal personality

Question 8

evaluation - sample/cultural bias

eysenck

Answer 8

• based on biased samples
• questioned in research by Bartol and Holanchock who studied hispanic and african groups in prison and divided them into 6 groups depending their criminal history and offence
  they found that all groups were less extraverted than a non-criminal group, likely due to it being a very different cultural group

Question 9

differential association theory

Answer 9

sutherland - offending behaviour can be explained by social learning. it’s about who you associate with

Question 10

scientific basis

Answer 10

sutherland sought out a set of conditions that cause crime when present - 9 factors e.g association being with intimate groups, general ‘need’ for money is not a sufficient explanation for crime because not everyone with those needs turn to crime

Question 11

crime as a learned behaviour

Answer 11

• individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques for committing crimes and motives for criminal behaviour through interaction with significant others
• peers, family, and the local community may model criminal behaviour or may show accceptance of deviant attitudes (social norms)
• the learning experience (differential associations) vary in frequency and intensity for each individual

Question 12

pro-criminal attitudes

Answer 12

if the number of pro-criminal attitudes the person comes to acquire outweights the number of anti-criminal attitudes, they will go on to offend

Question 13

imitation of criminal acts

Answer 13

• the would-be offender may also learn particular techniques for committing crime
• also can learn by direct reinforcement (operant conditioning) if role models are seen as successful - this provides vicarious reinforcement

Question 14

prisons

Answer 14

this theory explains why individuals imprisoned for a minor offence often reoffend when they are released. spending time with other criminals in the institution ( who may’ve committed more serious crimes) makes them likely to learn further criminal behaviour and attitudes

Question 15

osborne and west - supporting evidence

differential association

Answer 15

40% of sons with a father with a criminal conviction committed a crime before 18, compared to 13% of sons of non-criminal fathers

Question 16

farrington (2006) - supporting evidence

differential association

Answer 16

• longitudinal study of 411 males in south london area. findings described their criminal career up to age 50.
• 41% were convicted of at least one offence between age 10 and 50. most important risk factors from age 8-10 were criminality in the family, poverty, risk taking, poor parenting, poor school performance.
• 75% of offenders had offending parents

Question 17

evaluation - explanatory power

differential association

Answer 17

strength - can account for all types of crime e.g white collar and corporate crime

Question 18

evaluation - shift of focus

differential association

Answer 18

• sutherland was successful in moving the emphasis away from early biological accounts of crime, as well as away from those that explained offending as being the product of an individuals own immorality or weakness.
• draws attention to the fact that dysfunctional social circumstances and environments may be more to blame for criminality than dysfunctional people
  — offers a more realistic solution to the problem of crime instead of eugenics

Question 19

evaluation - difficulty of testing

differential association

Answer 19

• difficult to test
• e.g its hard to see how many pro-criminal attitudes a person has, or has been exposed to, could be measured. similarly, the theory is built on the assumption that offending behaviour will occur when pro-criminal attitudes outnumber anti-criminal ones
• without being able to measure these, it’s difficult to know at what point the urge to offend is realised and the criminal career triggered. the theory doesn’t provide a satisfactory solution to these issues, undermining its scientific credibility

Question 20

oedipus complex

Answer 20

son sees father as a rival for mother’s love, but comes to identify with father and develops a superego

Question 21

blackburn (1993)

Answer 21

if the superego is in some way deficient or inadequate the criminal behaviour is inevitable because the if is given ‘free reign’ and isn’t controlled properly

Question 22

superego

Answer 22

• formed at the end of phallic stage of the development which is when children resolve the oedipus/electra complex via the process of identification
• works on the morality principle and exerts its influence by punishing the ego through guilt for wrongdoing and rewarding it with pride for moral behaviour

Question 23

weak superego

Answer 23

if the same sex parent is absent during the phallic stage, tehn child cannot internalise a fully formed superego as there is no chance for identification. so, will act impulsively to gratify the id

Question 24

deviant superego

Answer 24

if the superego that the child internalises has immoral or deviant values that can lead to offending behaviour e.g a boy who is raised by a criminal father is not liekly to associate guilt with wrongdoing

Question 25

over-harsh superego

Answer 25

if the superego is too punitive or overly harsh, the individual is crippled by guilt and anxiety.
this may (unconsciously) drive the individuals to commit criminal acts to satisfy the superego’s overwhelming need for punishment

Question 26

maternal deprivation theory

Answer 26

• bowlby: deprivation of a continuous, loving relationship with the mother in the first two years of life has irreversible, damaging consequences
  – may lead to delinquency and ‘affectionless psychopathy’ - lack of empathy, shame or sense of responsibility

Question 27

bowlby’s 1944 study

Answer 27

• studied 44 delinquent children attending his clinic
• through interviews with the thieves and their families, 14 showed affectionless psychopathy
• 12 of those 14 had experiences prolonged separation from their mothers during infancy (especially in first 2 years)
• in a non-criminal group , only two had experienced similar early separation
  —- effects of maternal deprivation had caused affectionless and delinquent behaviour amongst the delinquent thieves

Question 28

evaluation - impossible to test and disprove

psychodynamic

Answer 28

p: important limitation of freudian theory is that because it relies on unsconscious concepts it means that applications to crime are not open to empirical testing
e: because there’s little evidence for to support the weak superego argument for offending the theory can only be judged on face value
c: consequently, psychpdynamic explanations are regarded as pseudoscientific and therefore contribute little to our understanding of crime

Question 29

evaluation - lack of supporting evidence

psychodynamic

Answer 29

• research does not support its predictions
• little evidence that children raised without same-sex parents are less law-abiding, which goes against blackburn’s inadequate superego argument. also, children of deviant parents who go onto commit crimes may do so due to genetics (biological) or social learning (differential association) rather than a deviant superego
• therefore, difficult to draw firm conclusions regarding the weak superego explanation for offending which reduces its usefulness

Question 30

evaluation of bowlby

psychodynamic

Answer 30

Correlational can’t conclude cause and effect as separation was not manipulated for ethical reasons. There could be other explanations of the association between separation and emotional problems, such as the effect of disrupted home life, temperament and personality, genetics, differential association theory – social learning etc. ​

Lack of supporting research - Lewis – analysed data from interviews with 500 young people and found that maternal deprivation was a poor predicator of future offending behaviour. Koluchova (1976) found deprivation effects are not inevitable . Some cases of severe deprivation have had good outcomes provided a child has good aftercare.​

Methodological problems – Bowlby- researcher bias – his expectations may have influenced the responses of his interviewees. ​

Privation not deprivation ( Rutter) Bowlby’s 44 thieves study has been heavily criticised for failing to distinguish between deprivation (having lost attachment) and privation (failure to develop any attachments during early life). Many of the thieves he studied had experienced privation, which many critics consider to be more damaging than deprivation.

Question 31

evaluation - gender bias
psychodynamic

Answer 31

Freud’s explanation of events during the phallic stage reveals his gender bias.​

E. Freud proposed that women should develop a weaker superego than men because they don’t identify as strongly with their same-sex parent as boys do. This is due partly to the fact that the resolution of the Electra complex is less satisfactory. If Freud’s views were correct. We would expect to see more women as criminals then men because of a weaker superego, where as this is not the case.​

C. These views therefore represent an alpha bias – exaggerating the difference between men and women and devaluing women.​

Question 32

level of moral reasoning

Answer 32

a series of progressively more logically consistent stages. an individual uses their own value system to think about whether an action is right or wrong

Question 33

moral dilemmas

Answer 33

moral stories for measuring level of moral reasoning

Question 34

kohlberg’s theory

Answer 34

criminal offenders are more likely to be classified at the pre-conventional level

Question 35

cognitive distortions

Answer 35

biased way of thinking which may be used to rationalise or justify offending behaviour

Question 36

hostile attribution bias

Answer 36

judging situations as aggressive and/or threatening when in reality they may not be

Question 37

minimalisation

Answer 37

downplaying the significance of an event or emotion as a means of dealing with guilt

Question 38

hollin and palmer
cognitive explanation

Answer 38

supporting: hollin and palmer (1998) assessed the level of moral reasoning in offenders compared to non-delinquents from 13-22 years old. male offenders showed poorer moral reasoning on 10 of the 11 questions compared to male non-offenders. suggesting offenders do have developmental moral deficits

Question 39

evaluation - hypothetical dilemma tasks
cognitive explanation

Answer 39

kohlberg’s theory is based on hypothetical dilemma tasks. it’s likely due to social desirability bias, people are unlikely to respond honestly, or even know how they would act
– meaning generalisabilty to real-life offences is limited

Question 40

evaluation - gender bias
cognitive explanation

Answer 40

• kohlberg developed his theory using an all-male sample
• kohlberg assumed his theory would apply to women - beta bias
  however, when women were tested, they appeared to be less morally developed. as men are significantly more likely to be be offenders, this suggests that kohlberg’s ideas aren’t generalisable
  — gilligan (1982) argues kohlberg’s entire theory is gender biased, focused on make ideas of justice, not female ideas of care

Question 41

schonberg and justye

Answer 41

showed violent offenders emotionally ambiguous faces, finding that the ppts were more likely to perceive the expressions as angry and hostile compared to a control group. such interpretations may have been learned in childhood

Question 42

pollock and hashmall

Answer 42

found that 35% of a sample of child molesters tried to justify their actions by claiming they were ‘showing affection’ or that the child consented