Psychological Theories of crime Flashcards

Question

What are the weaknesses of Bowlby's psychodynamic theory?

Answer 1

-An over focus on mothers as the sole cause of criminal behaviour. -Some children kept in isolation with vial disease didn't suffer from maternal deprivation. -Material deprivation can have a stronger correlation to crime that maternal deprivation.

Answer 2

Personality= relatively stable characteristics of a person that make their behaviour consistent across situations.

Answer 3

The theory conceives of criminal behaviour as the outcome of interactions between processes occurring at several different levels of explanation. He argued that the variations between people's personalities relates to an underlying functioning in their nervous system. He created a questionnaire to measure people's levels of extraversion (E), neuroticism (N) and psychoticism (P) and believed these socialisation processes are a biological factor in criminal behaviour, more specifically Eysenck believed high E and N scores meant the individual had a nervous system that was difficult to condition, so the individual is more likely to act antisocially.

Answer 4

Sociable, active, lively and sensation seeking. E is determined by the overall level of arousal in the person's CNS and ANS. High E scorers have a low level of arousal and therefore need more stimulation from their environment.

Answer 5

Anxious, depressed and react very strongly to aversive stimuli. N is determined by overall level of lability in the person's CNS. When N is low, the person has a stable, relatively unreactive nervous system, whereas a high N scorer has a high degree of instability.

Answer 6

Aggressive, antisocial, cold and egocentric.

Answer 7

He believed personality is linked to behaviour via socialisation processes. He viewed criminal behaviour as developmentally immature-it is selfish and concerned with immediate gratification. Socialisation= children are taught to become more able to delay gratification and more socially orientated. This is accomplished primarily through conditioning. When children are immature they are punished-associate anxiety with antisocial behaviour so the person avoids doing it. Eysenck believed that people with high E and N scores had nervous systems that made them difficult to condition-more likely to act antisocially.

Answer 8

-Rushton and Christjohn (1981) compared E,N and P scores with self reports of delinquency in school children and students-found those who reported higher levels of delinquency also scored higher on E,N+P= consistent with Eysenck's prediction (compared to non-offenders, offenders should have higher E,P+N scores. -However, studies of 'official' delinquency don't produce such clear cut results: Farrington et al (1982) reviewed 16 studies of the relationship between E,N+P measures with criminal convictions. Found that in the majority of cases offenders scored higher on P but not on E. -Hollin (1989) notes a similar pattern of findings: offenders generally show higher P and N scores but not necessarily higher E scores. -Putwain and Sammons (2002) say that E scales measure 2 things, sociability and impulsiveness and that criminality is associated with the latter but not the former.

Answer 9

-His theory suggests that the underlying tendencies that eventually manifest themselves as criminal behaviour are detectable in childhood and that it may be possible to modify the socialisation experiences of high risk individuals so they don't develop into offenders-could lead to interventions based on parenting or early treatment for delinquency-may be of great practical benefit in reducing criminal behaviour.

Answer 10

-Some empirical support but critics have argued that the data is flawed. Research relies heavily on the self-report measures of personality devised by Eysenck. Some (including Farrington et al) have suggested that these scales are subject to response bias. -Research compares convicted offenders and the general population but excludes those who commit crimes and are not caught/convicted-so much of the research is about the personality of 'unsuccessful offenders'. -'P' is a significant weakness as it is unclear what it actually measures. -Eysenck says personality is 'a set of stable traits which cause people to behave consistently across situations' however situationalist theories of personality suggest that no such consistency really exists. E.g. Mischel (1962) argues that the apparent consistency in people's behaviour is an illusion that arises from the fact that we typically observe people in similar situations. -Howitt (2009)=Eysenck's theory may tell us that rapists and child abusers are extravert, neurotic and psychotic, but it doesn't tell us why they rape or abuse children.

Answer 11

In terms of how it can be observed in other people and then repeated by those who make the observations. It is therefore ‘social’ because we learn it from each other.

Answer 12

Argued that behaviour is because people model the behaviour that they see around them= observational learning. However, not just anyone, we repeat the actions of someone we see as similar to ourselves (role model).

Answer 13

A controlled (lab) experiment to investigate if social behaviours (aggression) can be acquired by observation and imitation. Ppts: 36 boys and 36 girls from Stanford University Nursery school aged between 3-6. The IV (type of model) was manipulated in 3 conditions: -1: Aggressive model. -2: Non-aggressive model. -3: No model. Stage 1: modelling. Ppts in a room individually with a selection of toys and watched the model either being aggressive towards the bobo doll, playing quietly ignoring the doll or with no model (control). Stage 2: Aggressive arousal. Children told they couldn't play with some toys and that they were reserved for other children. Stage 3: Delayed imitation. Child in a room with a mix of toys and observed for 20 minutes.

Answer 14

-Children who observed the aggressive model made more imitative aggressive responses than those in the non-aggressive or control groups. -The girls in the aggressive model group also showed more physical aggressive responses if the model was female. However, the exception to this general pattern was the observation of how often they punched bobo, in this case the effects of gender were reversed. -Boys were more likely to imitate same sex models than girls. -Boys imitated more physically aggressive acts than girls. -There was little difference in verbal aggression between boys and girls. -There was more partial and non-imitative aggression among those children who had observed aggressive behaviour, although the difference for non-imitative aggressive behaviour was small.

Answer 15

-Paying attention: must need to and want to pay attention. -Retention of observations: store new info in memory. -Reproduction of observations: must be able to successfully reproduce them. -Motivation: reproduction of behaviour only comes about when someone is motivated to repeat it (vicarious reinforcement). -Identification: individual ultimately takes on the same values and beliefs of their role model.

Answer 16

-Lots of evidence to support theory (Bandura). -Shows how reinforcement doesn't need to take place for behaviour to be learnt-can simply be observed and copied. -Can explain why people who grow up in households where there are experiences of domestic violence are more likely to be involved in it themselves- children who live with someone who has substance abuse issues are 4x more likely to exhibit same problems when they are older.

Answer 17

-Much of experiments used to test it only show short term effects- difficult to state if observation of aggressive role models will continue in the long term-real life application of findings is poor. -Can't account for crimes where observation is unlikely (murder).

Answer 18

We learn particular behaviours when we receive a reward or reinforcement immediately after committing that behaviour. An association is formed between the behaviour and the reinforcement mechanism.

Answer 19

Argued that all behaviour has been learnt through the OC process and all behaviour has been reinforced. Skinner states we don't have to take into account human thought processes. All behaviour is a learned response.

Answer 20

A consequence that strengthens a behaviour or makes it less likely to be repeated.

Answer 21

A consequence that weakens a behaviour or makes it less likely to be repeated. It can involve the presentation of an unpleasant stimulus or the removal of a pleasant one.

Answer 22

A process used to teach complex behaviours. A complex behaviour-broken down into a series of simple behaviours. These are taught one by one using reinforcement and punishment and gradually combined to create the desired complex behaviour. This is frequently used to teach tricks to animals.

Answer 23

The process by which a person/animal learns that a particular behaviour only brings reinforcement under particular conditions. E.g. a cat may learn that meowing results in food (PR) but only when someone is in the kitchen, so will only meow when a person is there.

Answer 24

-Can be applied to many areas of society with little training. -Example of scientific research. -Research into OC= valuable contribution to society-provides and explanation for the development of many behaviours. -Led to development of treatments (token economies). -Use of PR to encourage and condition desirable behaviour and punishments to extinguish undesirable behaviours.

Answer 25

-Whilst conditioning can be observed in rats, human behaviour is driven by complex emotions and thought processes. -Ethical issues=animals exposed to stressful and harmful conditions. -Can't necessarily generalise findings from animals to humans.

Answer 26

Suggests that through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motivation for criminal behaviour. Our friendship groups can affect criminality, especially during adolescence. Differential associations (number of contacts with criminals over non criminals) may vary in frequency, duration, priority and intensity. The process of learning criminal behaviour by association with criminal and anti criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning. The principal part of the learning of criminal behaviour occurs within intimate personal groups. 1. Criminal behaviour is learned. This means that criminal behaviour isn't inherited, as such; also, the person who is not already trained in crime doesn't invent criminal behaviour. 2. Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other people in a process of communication-verbal in many cases but includes gestures. 3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behaviour occurs within intimate personal groups. But this means that impersonal communication, such as movies or newspapers, play a relatively unimportant part in committing criminal behaviour. 4. When criminal behaviour is learned, the learning includes a) techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very simple, b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalisations and attitudes.

Answer 27

-Differential association theory of offending is supported by this study, by Farrington et al (2006). This study followed 411 males who were all living in a working-class deprived inner city area of South London. Study started in 1961, when they were 8. The researchers looked at official records of conviction and self-report of offending up to the age of 50. 41% ppts had at least 1 conviction. The most significant children risk factors at age 8-10 for later offending were family criminality, daring or risk taking, low school attainment, poverty and poor parenting.

Answer 28

The theory predicts that offenders will come from families and groups who have pro-criminal norms. This is shown to be the case by Osborne and West (1982) as they found that 40% of the sons of convicted criminals also had convictions by the age of 18, whereas only 13% of sons of non criminal fathers had a conviction. Also supported by Cambridge study in delinquency development. However, this pattern could also be explained by genetic factors. Furthermore, evidence suggests criminality is concentrated in a small number of families.

Answer 29

-WCC generally require high technical skills which can usually only be learnt in close contact with educated people in power (Sutherland 1950). Even when the larger culture of a corporation upholds ethical norms, close association with a select group possessing questionable morals can gradually transform an individual.

Answer 30

-Theory applies to any crime and to any socioeconomic background. However, the research has focused on relatively petty crimes-doesn't show if more serious crimes follow the same pattern. -Research is usually correlational, so other factors could be involved. -Doesn't explain why criminality decreases with age. -The fact that criminality runs in families could also be explained by the psychodynamic theory. -Doesn't explain why some people who are exposed to criminality don't become a criminal themselves. -Is socially sensitive=could lead to stereotyping those from criminal backgrounds as likely to commit crimes themselves, so opportunities could be denied to them, and could also lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.