Psychological explanations: Psychodynamic theory

Question 1

What is the superego?

Answer 1

• Formed at the end of the phallic stage
• It works on the morality principle
• Exerts influence by punishing ego through guilt for wrong doing, whilst rewarding it with pride for good moral behaviour

Question 2

What are the 3 types of superego?

Answer 2

• Weak > absent same sex during phallic stage, cannot internalise a fully-formed superego as no identification.
• Deviant > child raised with a criminal parent, internalises immoral values
• Over-harsh > due to punitive/overly harsh parenting style, crippled with guilt and anxiety. Unconsciously drive individual to perform criminal acts to satisfy need for punishment

Question 3

Bowlbys maternal deprivation theory

Answer 3

• Failure to establish maternal bond during first few years of life leads to irreversible consequences in later life
• May lead to affectionless psychopathy, lacking guilt, empathy and feelings for others
• Maternally deprived individuals likely to engage in acts of delinquency, increases likelihood of criminal behaviour

Question 4

Weakness: Gender bias

Answer 4

• Freud proposed women develop a weaker superego than men as they don’t identify with same-sex parents as strongly
• Due to girls not experience the intense emotion with castration anxiety and Freud believing there’s little reason to identify with a woman due to lower status
• Women should be more prone to offending behaviour than men, which isn’t true
• Alpha bias, not an appropiate explanation

Question 5

Weakness: Pseudoscience

Answer 5

• Theory lacks falsifiability, cannot be empirically tested and applied to crime scientifically
• Explanation would not contribute alot to the explanation of offending

Question 6

Strength: Research support

Answer 6

• Goreta conducted a Freudian-style analysis of ten offenders referred fir psychiatric treatment
• Disturbances in superego formation diagnosed
• Each offender experienced unconscious feelings of guilt/need for self punishment
• Support the role of psychic conflicts and over-harsh superego

Question 7

Weakness: Not causal findings

Answer 7

• Bowlbys theory only based on association between maternal deprivation and offending
• Seperation was not manipulated
• There may be other variables that caused emotional problems
• Cannot draw causal conclusions with 44 thieves study