psychological explanations of offending behaviour

Question 1

explain Eysenck’s theory of criminal personality

Answer 1

suggests that personality is biologically based and that personality traits include dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism that can be measured using a personality questionnaire
later, Eysenck added a third dimension - psychoticism
Eysenck argued for there being a criminal personality which would characterise people who score highly on all three personality dimensions

Question 2

define extraversion

Answer 2

extraversion refers to a biological need individuals have high or low levels of environmental stimulation, determined by the level of arousal in a person’s central and autonomic nervous system
people with high levels of extraversion have a low level of arousal meaning that they require more environmental stimulation to fuel their excitement
this environmental stimulation may include criminal behaviour

Question 3

define neuroticism

Answer 3

neuroticism refers to the stability of personality
a high neuroticism score would represent someone who is more reactive and volatile and perhaps more likely to engage in offending behaviour

Question 4

define psychoticism

Answer 4

psychoticism relates to the degree to which somebody is anti-social, aggressive and uncaring

Question 5

evaluations of Eysenck’s Personality Theory

Answer 5

+ Eysenck and Eysenck (1997) compared 2070 male prisoners scores on EPI with 2422 male controls, all sub-divided into age groups - results found that prisoners recorded higher scores than controls for P,E and N
- reductionist approach to measuring personality and is an oversimplification of the classification of criminals - Digman (1990) updated to the five factor model including openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness
- Farrington et al (1982)’s meta-analysis showed inconsistent results - offenders reported high on P but not E or N and there was little difference in EEG measures between introverts and extroverts - criminality is associated impulsiveness but not sociability
- cultural bias - Bartol and Holanchock (1979) studied Hispanic and African-American prisoners compared against a control group - results found that all criminals were less extraverted than the non-criminals so it cannot be generalisable

Question 6

kohlberg’s levels of moral reasoning

Answer 6

developmental theory that looks at the ways in which individuals grow in their understanding of moral decision-making and behaviour
Kohlberg argued that this happens in a staged process where moral reasoning becomes more complex and abstract as a child ages
he argued that it usually complete by the age of 9-10 which is in line with the age of criminal responsibility in the UK which is 10 yo.

Question 7

define level of moral reasoning

Answer 7

level of moral reasoning refers to the ways that people think about and perceive right or wrong

Question 8

describe kohlberg’s original sstudy 1973

Answer 8

method: 72 boys (ages 10,13 and 16)
findings: criminals have a lower level of moral reasoning than others
they do not progress from the pre-conventional level and seek to avoid punishment and gain rewards indicating child-like reasoning behaviour
non-criminals tend to reason at higher levels and sympathise with others, exhibiting honesty, generosity and non-violence, all aspects of post-conventional reasoning
serious offenders have a moral outlook that differs from that of the majority
Allen et al (2001) supported this assumption by showing that criminals tend to have lower levels of moral reasoning

Question 9

what are the three levels of moral reasoning?

Answer 9

preconventional reasoning
conventional reasoning
postconventional reasoning

Question 10

what is preconventional reasoning?

Answer 10

an action is morally wrong if the person is punished as a result
the right behaviour is the one thats in your best interest

Question 11

what is conventional reasoning?

Answer 11

right behaviour is the one that makes people think positively about you
it is important to obey laws and follow social conventions because they help society to function properly

Question 12

what is postconventional reasoning?

Answer 12

right course of action is the one that promotes the greatest food for all greatest number of people
actions are driven by abstract, universal principles of right and wrong which don’t depend on the situation

Question 13

what are cognitive distortions?

Answer 13

examples of dysfunctional thought processing where we show errors in our logic

Question 14

what are the two types of cognitive distortions attributed to criminality?

Answer 14

hostile attribution bias
minimalisation

Question 15

what is hostile attribution bias?

Answer 15

the tendency for offenders to view emotionally ambiguous or non-threatening situations as hostile or threatening and so is an automatic reaction to novel situations

Question 16

explain Wegrzyn et al’s research (2017)

Answer 16

62 males - 30 violent criminals, 15 with a history of sexual abuse in children and 17 controls
shown 20 ambiguous faces and asked to rate fear and anger
results showed that violent criminals have a hostile attribution bias as they rated the faces as angry more often than controls and the other criminals

Question 17

explain Schonenberg and Justye’s research (2014)

Answer 17

55 violent offenders were exposed to pictures of facial expressions which were neither clearly hostile nor clearly neutral
the majority viewed the images as aggressive or hostile
this may be a result of being a rejected or aggressive child according to Dodge and Frame (1982)

Question 18

what is minimalisation?

Answer 18

common amongst sex offenders
used as a coping mechanism for guilt or regret where offenders will under-exaggerate the significance of their crimes and the emotional consequences suffered by the victims

Question 19

explain Pollock and Hasmall’s research (1991)

Answer 19

35% of child molesters attempted to justify their crimes as non-malicious and simply being a way of showing their affection
36% did not accept committing a crime at all as they perceived the child as consenting

Question 20

evaluations of cognitive explanations for criminal behaviour

Answer 20

• Gibbs (1979) prosed an alternative theory of moral reasoning: Level 1 (avoidance of punishment and personal gain) and Level 2 (empathy, social justice and conscience) - said Kohlberg’s post-conventional stage contained a western cultural bias and does not represent a natural maturational stage of development and should be abandoned
  + Piaget’s theory of cognitive development supports this as he suggested that child-liked (criminal) moral reasoning is self-centred and ego-centric which gives way to empathy and a concern for the needs of others as children mature.
• cognitive theories may not be able to explain all examples of offending behaviour e.g. impulsive crimes appear to be carried out by offenders with no reasoning at all - intelligence may be a more important factor in determining the likelihood of an individual committing a crime and is more quantifiable and objective compared to levels of moral reasoning according to Langdon (2010)
  + an improved understanding of cognitive biases and their relationship to specific crimes and criminals has a real-life application in cognitive therapies as it could be used to tackle minimalisation and result in reduced recidivism rates in sex offenders

Question 21

explain Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory (1924)

Answer 21

it suggests that crime is essentially a learned behaviour and can be explained using the principles of SLT where the role models are criminal peers or a criminal university e.g. prison
this scientific emphasis on this theory suggests that it is possible to accurately predict the likelihood that an individual will become a criminal based on their expose to pro- or anti-criminal attitudes
Sutherland suggested that crime was not genetically inherited but instead acquired through learning and association

Question 22

explain Blackburn’s psychodynamic approach to offending (1993)

Answer 22

if the superego is deficient then criminal behaviour is inevitable because the id is given ‘free reign’

Question 23

explain the effect of a weak superego according to Blackburn

Answer 23

if the same-sex person is absent during the phallic stage, there is no identification so the child cannot internalise a fully-formed superego - making immoral/criminal behaviour likely

Question 24

explain the effect of a deviant superego according to Blackburn

Answer 24

if the superego the child internalises has immoral or deviant values this would lead to offending behaviour e.g. criminal parents

Question 25

explain the effect of an over-harsh superego according to Blackburn

Answer 25

an excessively harsh or punitive superego makes the individual crippled by guilt or anxiety - this means they may commit criminal acts to satisfy the superego’s need for punishment

Question 26

explain how Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation relates to psychological explanations of offending behaviour

Answer 26

the ability to form meaningful relationships as an adult is dependent on the child forming continuous and positive relationships with a mother figure
failure to establish this leads to damaging and irreversible consequences such as an affectionless psychopathy that lacks guilt and empathy

Question 27

explain how each defence mechanism work?

Answer 27

defence mechanisms are used by the unconscious mind to reduce anxiety as anxiety weakens the ego
displacement - focus of anger shifted from actual target to neutral target
denial - unwanted reality of threatening event is ignored and blocked from conscious awareness
repression - involves the ego stopping unwanted and possibly painful thoughts from being conscious

Question 28

explain Bowlby’s 44 juvenile thieves study

Answer 28

method: backgrounds of 44 adolescents who had been referred to a clinic due to stealing were assessed along with a control group of 44 emotionally disturbed adolescents who didn’t steal
results: 17/44 thieves had experienced frequent separation from their mothers before 2 years old and only 2/44 in the control group + 14/44 were diagnosed as ‘affectionless psychopaths (12/14 were separate from their mothers)
conclusion: deprivation of the child from its main carer in early life can have harmful long-term effects

Question 29

evaluations of Sutherland’s theory

Answer 29

• Sutherland’s theory is difficult to objectively and reliably measure - meaning that any conclusions drawn are lacking in validity
• incorrect to assume that simply because an individual has been exposed to more pro-criminal attitudes compared to anti-criminal attitudes does not mean they will become a criminal - determinist approach that may lead to increased crime through the realisation of self-fulfilling prophecies and may lead to scientific justification for discrimination and justification
  + Sutherland’s theory offers a refreshing approach to explain crime - this theory provides a fair and realistic explanation of crime which does not hold the individual entirely accountable

Question 30

evaluations of psychodynamic explanations of offending behaviour

Answer 30

• evidence contradicting Bowlby’s study - Lewis (1959) found that maternal deprivation during childhood was not indicative or a reliable predictor of the likelihood of becoming a criminal in the future nor were they at a disadvantage at forming close relationships during adulthood - decreasing the validity of Blackburn’s conclusion that inadequate superegos are a reliable predictor of criminality
• suffers from gender bias according to Hoffman (1975) as according to Freud, girls should be at a greater risk of becoming criminals because they suffer from penis envy and so their superego’s have been internalised to a smaller extent compared to boys - although statistical evidence does not support this idea
• lack of scientific rigour - this concept cannot be empirically and objectively measured since the superego is a concept

Question 31

evaluations of Bowlbys’s 44 thieves study

Answer 31

+- results indicate a link between deprivation and criminal behaviour but it cannot be said that one caused the other - they may be other factors e.g. poverty that caused the criminal behaviour
+- although case studies provide a lot of detailed information, the study relied on retrospective data which may be unreliable