psychological explanations: psychodynamic

Question 1

what did blackburn (1993) argue?

Answer 1

if the superego is somehow deficient or inadequate then offending behaviour is inevitable because the id is given free rein and not properly controlled

Question 2

what are the three types of inadequate superego?

Answer 2

1. weak superego
2. deviant superego
3. over-harsh superego

Question 3

weak superego: formation and link to offending behaviour

Answer 3

• if the same-gender parent is absent during the phallic stage, a child cannot internalise a fully-formed superego as there is no opportunity for identification
• this would make immoral or offending behaviour more likely

Question 4

deviant superego: formation and link to offending behaviour

Answer 4

• if the superego that a child internalises has immoral or deivant values this would lead to offending behaviour
• eg. a boy who is raised by a criminal father is not likely to associate guilt with wrongdoing

Question 5

over-harsh superego: formation and link to offending behaviour

Answer 5

• a healthy superego is based on identification with a parent who has firm rules but forgives transgressions
• an overly harsh parenting style leads to a child with an over-harsh superego who is crippled by guilt and anxiety
• this may (unconsciously) drive the individual to perform criminal acts to satisfy the superego’s overwhelming need for punishment

Question 6

describe the role of emotion in the psychodynamic approach

Answer 6

• an inadequate superego allows primitive emotional demands to become uppermost in guiding moral behaviour
• PA acknowledges the role of anxiety and guilt in the development of offending behaviour
• this means that lack of guilt is important in understanding offending behaviour as in the case of maternal deprivation

Question 7

theory of maternal deprivation in relation to offending behaviour

Answer 7

• bowlby (1944) argued that the ability to form meaningful relationships in adulthood was dependent upon the child forming a warm, continunous relationship with a mother-figure
• failure to establish such a relationship during the first few years of life means a child is likely to experience a number of damaging and irreversible consequences in later life

Question 8

what is the result of maternal deprivation?

Answer 8

• development of affectionless psychopathy
• lack of guilt, empathy and feeling for others
• such maternally deprived individuals are likely to engage in acts of delinquency and cannot develop close relationships with others

Question 9

44 juvenile thieves (bowlby 1944)

Answer 9

• through interviews with the thieves and their families, 14 of the sample he studied showed personality and behavioural characteristics that oculd be classified a AP
• 12/14 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers during infancy, particularly in the first 2 years of their lives
• in the non-offender group, only 2 had experienced similar early separation
• bowlby concluded that the effects of MD had caused affectionless and delinquent behaviour among the juvenile thieves

Question 10

evaluation: reserach support for link between offending and the superego (goreta 1991)

Answer 10

• conducted a freudian-style analysis of 10 offenders referred for psychiatric treatment
• in all those assessed, disturbances in superego formation were diagnosed
• each offender experienced unconscious feelings on guilt and the need for self-punishment
• goreta explained this as a consequence of an over-harsh superego
• the need for punishment manigested itself as a desire to commit acts of wrongdoing and offend
• this evidence seems to support the role of psychic conflicts and an over-harsh superego as a basis for offending

Question 11

evaluation: the central principles of the inadequate superego theory are not supported

Answer 11

• if this theory were correct we would expect harsh, punitive parents to raise children who constantly experience feelings of guilt and anxiety but evidence suggests the opposite is true
• parents who rely on harsher forms of discipline tend to raise children who are rebellious and rarely express feelings of guilt or self-criticism (kochanska et al. 2001)
• this questions the relationship between a strong, punitive internal parent and excessive feelings of guilt within the child

Question 12

evaluation: freudian theory is gender-bias

Answer 12

• an implicit assumption in freud’s theory is that girls develop a weaker superego than boys as identification with the same-gender parent is not as strong
• this is because girls do not experience the intense emotions associated with castration anxiety so are under less pressure to identify with their mothers than boys are with their fathers
• therefore, according to freud, their superego, and consequently their sense of morality, is less fully realised
• this should mean that women are more prone to offending behaviour than men
• rates of imprisonment shows that the opposite is more likely to be true
• in the UK, 20 times more men are in prison than women
• due to alpha bias, freud’s theory may not be appropriate as an explanation for offending behaviour

Question 13

evaluation: gender bias evidence (hoffman 1975)

Answer 13

• in a study where children were required to resist temptation, they found hardly any evidence of gender differences
• when there was, young girls tended to be more moral than young boys

Question 14

evaluation: bowlby’s theory is only based on an association between maternal deprivation and offending (lewis 1954)

Answer 14

• analysed data drawn from interviews with 500 young people
• found that maternal deprivation was a poor predictor of future offending and the ability to form close relationships in adolescence
• even if there is a link between children who have experienced frequent or prolonged separation from their mothers and offending in later life, this is not necessarily a causal relationship
• there are other reasons for this apparent link eg. maternal deprivation may be due to growing up in poverty
• this suggests MD may be one of the reasons for later offending behaviour but not the only reason

Question 15

evaluation: contribution

Answer 15

• psychodynamic explanations were some of the first to link early experience in childhood to moral behaviour and offending
• this is now regarded as common sense in contemporary criminology
• they also drew attention to the emotional basis of offending, which is largely ignored by other explanations

Question 16

evaluation: lack of scientific rigour

Answer 16

• the many unconscious concepts in psychodynamic theory are not open to empirical testing
• in the absence of supporting evidence, arguments such as the inadequate superego can only be judged on their face value rather than their scientific worth