Psychological Positivism

Question 1

Psychoanalytic theories

Answer 1

Focuses on thoughts and motivations outside of our awareness that influence behaviour.

• Freud
• Bowlby

Question 2

Freud

Answer 2

• Humans have selfish, pleasure seeking impulses that conflict with broader interests of social groups.
• Crime is the result of acting on these impulses.
• The reason we act on these impulses is a failure of our conscience (superego).

Question 3

3 parts of our personality (Freud)

Answer 3

ID - primitive instinctual behaviours driven by pleasure principles and seeking gratification.
EGO - enables ID to function in socially acceptable ways.
SUPEREGO - contains internalised morals and social standards that guide behaviour, controlling our ID and EGO.

Question 4

If the superego fails…

Answer 4

A) Harsh superego - suffers extreme guilt and therefore acts out which subconsciously invites punishment.
B) Weak superego - self-centred, impulsive, egocentric and lacking in guilt. Typical of psychopaths,
C) Deviant superego - superego develops normally but internalised moral standards which guide deviant behaviour.

Question 5

How does the superego develop?

Answer 5

• Socialisation and internalisation of society’s rules during early childhood.
• Impaired parent-child relationship.
• Unconscious conflicts arising from disturbed family relationships at different stages of development.

Question 6

Bowlby

Answer 6

Attachment theory and Maternal Deprivation

• A child has an innate need to attach to one main figure.
• A child should receive continuous care for the first 2 years of life.
• If attachment is broken or disrupted in the 2 years, the child will suffer irreversible long-term consequences of this deprivation.

Question 7

Long term consequences of maternal deprivation

Answer 7

• Delinquency.
• Reduced intelligence.
• Increased aggression.
• Depression,
• Affection-less psychopath.
• Greater risk that a child will commit crime as an adult.

Question 8

Research for psychoanalytic theory

Answer 8

• Separation of child from mother is not a significant predictor of criminal behaviour.
• It is the quality of child-rearing that is important, not just who is doing it.
• Types of punishment and reward by both parents is key, not just mother.
• Hard identifying key variable (e.g. broken home, low income) - Morash and Rucker.
• Bowlby’s work had major lasting impact on social worker training.

Question 9

Empirical validity for psychoanalytic theory

Answer 9

• Studies focused on individuals of small numbers of people who commit the most serious crimes.
• Few studies involved comparisons between wider offences of the general non-offending population.
• As motivations are argued to be unconscious, they are unknown to the offender. Thus the findings are based on interpretations.

Question 10

Cognitive/personality theories

Answer 10

Creative thinking and choice, associated with the rational actor model.
- Eysenck

Question 11

Intelligence

Answer 11

There is a body of research to suggest low IQ scores are associated with delinquency.
Biological vs non-biological debate.

Question 12

Personality

Answer 12

Explains crime through having an abnormal, inadequate personality type/traits.
Personality traits like impulsiveness, aggression, sensation-seeking, rebelliousness and hostility that claimed to lead to criminality.
Research has been inconsistent.

Question 13

Yochelson and Samenow

Answer 13

Identified flawed ways of thinking that are common to criminals.

Question 14

Evaluation of Yochelson and Samenow

Answer 14

-ve no control group.
-ve sample contained mentally disordered members.
+ve has had an impact with ‘cognitive skills training’ - rehabilitation programmes that aim to provide offenders with skills to resolve everyday decisions.

Question 15

Kohlberg - moral development and crime

Answer 15

Levels of reasoning
Level 1 - right and wrong is determined by rewards and punishments (criminals are most likely to be here).
Level 2 - views of others matter, avoid blame and seek approval.
Level 3 - abstracts notions of justice. Rights of others can override obedience to rules.

Question 16

How does moral reasoning develop?

Answer 16

• Influenced with nature of interaction with peers, parents etc.
• Type and extent of discipline used.
• Type and extent of supervision.
• Nature of interactions.
• Family structure.

Question 17

Eysenck - personality components

Answer 17

• Extroversion.
• Neuroticism.
• Psychoticism (high levels lead to criminality).
  Socialisation is crucial as it can either help or hinder these components.

Question 18

Research for Eysenck

Answer 18

Mixed results but offenders tend to score high on psychoticism and neuroticism.

Question 19

Interpersonal violence

Answer 19

Research demonstrates continuity of patterns of aggression between childhood and adulthood, linked to family based socialisation including:

• Cruel and inconsistent discipline.
• Physical methods of restraint and control.
• Trauma in childhood.

Question 20

Policy implications of cognitive/personality theory

Answer 20

• Individual focus so individual level solutions (change the person).
• Focus on rehabilitation and reformation.
• Severe implications for individuals who don’t respond.
• Parenting programmes.
• Anger management.
• ‘Think first’ probation programs to tackle offenders ‘act first think later’ attitude.

Question 21

Social Learning Theory

Answer 21

Behaviours are learned.

• Skinner
• Bandura

Question 22

Skinner - operant learning

Answer 22

Positive vs negative reinforcement looks at the impact of rewards and punishments.
Behaviour resulting in rewards will increase in frequency, whereas ones resulting in punishment will decrease.

Question 23

Sutherland - differential association

Answer 23

Differential - we are exposed to different types and amounts of messages.
Association - criminal behaviour is learned in association with intimate personal groups.

Question 24

Jeffery - differential reinforcement

Answer 24

Criminal acts may lead to positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement, but negative is the most important variable. Crime occurs because criminal acts have not been punished enough in the past.
Criminals have different conditioning histories.

Question 25

Bandura - bobo doll

Answer 25

Children observed an adult interacting with a bobo doll. He found that children who observed the aggressive role models made far more aggressive responses than those who didn’t see an aggressive role model.

Question 26

Burgess and Akers - differential-association-reinforcement theory

Answer 26

Criminal behaviour is learned through what we see and experience, and the strength of criminal behaviour is related to the effectiveness of reinforcers.

Question 27

Evaluation of social learning theory

Answer 27

-ve some evidence that does support wasn’t conducted in a natural setting (lacks ecological validity).
-ve not all individuals who experience this do commit crime.
-ve ignores genetics.
+ve but families and peers do appear important.
-ve we have control over behaviour, we don’t automatically copy people (not passive).

Question 28

Policy implications of social learning theory

Answer 28

• Prevention and rehabilitation.
• Parenting programmes.
• Programmes to modify attitudes and behaviours.
• Mentoring schemes.
• Counselling.