Psychological explanations of offender profiling: Psychodynamic Flashcards
What is the psychodynamic explanation?
Refers to any theory that emphasises change and development in the individual, particularly those theories where ‘drive’ is a central concept in development.
What is meant by affectionless psychopathy?
A behaviour in which the individual cannot experience shame or guilt and lacks a social conscience. This means that they may find it ‘easier’ to commit crimes.
What did Bowlby propose about prolonged separations between a mother and child?
It would have long-term emotional consequences.
Separation will only have this effect if this happens before the age of about 2 1/2 years, and if there is no substitute mother-person available.
What is affectionless psychopathy a consequence of?
Prolonged separation between mother and child before ages 2 and a half.
How did Bowlby explain delinquent behaviour?
Bowlby observed that several delinquent thieves had experienced early and frequent separation and they also displayed signs of affectionless psychopathy.
These characteristics enabled them to be ‘thieves’ as they could steal from others it didn’t matter to them.
What did Bowlby find in his study?
Found that none of the control ppts experienced early separations, whereas 39% of the thieves had experienced early separations.
Thieves with an affectionless character had almost all experienced frequent separations - 12/14 compared to 5/30 of other thieves.
What does the “id” represent?
It represent our primitive wants and operates according to the pleasure principle.
What does the superego determine?
It functions as what?
It determines which behaviours are permissible and causes of feeling guilt wen rules are broken.
As a moral compass.
What does the ego do?
It mediates between the impulsive demands of the Id and the moralistic demands .
The Ego is anchored in the reality of the external world.
Why is the superego likely to be related to offending behaviours?
Because it is concerned with right and wrong.
What are the 3 types of deficit superego?
Weak or underdeveloped superego
Harsh or overdeveloped superego
Deviant superego
How is a weak superego developed?
What is the consequence of a weak superego?
A child who does not identify with their same sex parent or whose parent is absent develops a weak super-ego.
The consequence is that the person has little control over anti-social behaviour and is likely to act in ways that gratify their instinctual id impulses.
How is a harsh or overdeveloped superego developed?
What is the consequence of a harsh or overdeveloped superego?
A child may develop a very strong identification with a strict parent.
The consequence is excessive feelings of guilt and excessive feelings of guilt and anxiety much of the time because, any time they act on id impulses, they would feel bad.
The individual would commit a crime with a wish to be caught and then the punishment would reduce their feelings of guilt.
How is a deviant superego developed?
What is a consequence of a deviant superego?
Normal identification with the same-sex parent means that the child takes on the same moral attitudes as that parent.
In the case of children with criminal parents, the child would then adopt the same deviant attitudes.
Outline the evaluation points for the psychodynamic explanation
Not casual finding
Gender bias in Freud’s theory
Lack of falsifiability
(Psychic determinism)
