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A-Levels > Psychology/ Forensics > Flashcards

Psychology/ Forensics Flashcards

1
Q

What are four ways to deal with offending behaviour?

A

1.Anger management
2.Custodial sentencing and recidivism
3.Behaviour modification (token economy)
4.Restorative Justice programmes

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2
Q

What RWA is there for Recidivism?

A

80,000 men and 4000 women in prison, 46% of these convicts re-offended

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3
Q

What are the aims of custodial sentencing?

A
  1. Protect the public
  2. Punishment and prevent - behaviourist
  3. Deter others - SLT
  4. Retribution
  5. Rehabilitation
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4
Q

Is custodial sentencing effective in punishment and preventing?

A

No, just under 50% of prisoners re-offend. Meaning its likely that the offender sees the punishment for getting caught and not the actual crime itself

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5
Q

Is custodial sentencing effective in Rehabilitation?

A

Yes and no. Offenders cant be forced to take part in such programmes, and some may just do it for a shorter sentence

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6
Q

What is a negative evaluation point of Custodial sentencing?

A

Individual differences - Home office of statistics found younger people are more likely to re-offend and thieves are twice as likely compared to murderers or sex offenders

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7
Q

What are the three key principles of Token economy?

A
  1. Reinforcement
  2. Punishment
  3. Shaping
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8
Q

What are the psychological effects of Custodial sentencing?

A

Brutalisation
Labelling
Institutionalised
Psychological problems i.e. suicide

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9
Q

What research was done to support Token economy?

A

Hobbs & Holt - Observed the use of token economy at Alabama boys industrial school.
The boys lived in 4 cottages, one of which were controlled. Boys were told how many tokens they could earn in each behaviour category.

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10
Q

What were the findings of Hobbs and Holts study?

A

just under an average of 30% increase of social behaviour in 3 cottages

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11
Q

What are three evaluation points of token economy?

A
  1. Does it work in the long-term
  2. Is it ethical
  3. Individual differences
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12
Q

What are the three steps of the Stress inoculation model?

A
  1. Cognitive preparation
  2. Skill acquisition
  3. Application training
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13
Q

What are three evaluation points of anger management programmes?

A
  1. They are successful - Landen burger et al analysed 58 studies and a strong negative correlation was found
  2. Methodological problems - Role play isn’t real life terms, which question the validity of the long-term effect
  3. Individual differences
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14
Q

What is restorative justice?

A

Seeking to receive justice by repairing the harm done rather than punishment

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15
Q

What are three aims of restorative justice?

A
  1. Rehabilitation of the offender
  2. Atonement for wrongdoing
  3. helping the victims
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16
Q

What is a theory of restorative justice?

A

Watchel and McCold believe that the focus should be on the relationship rather than punishment and to consider the wider community as well as offender and victim

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17
Q

What are three types and degrees of Restorative justice practice?

A
  1. Victim reparation
  2. Offender responsibility
  3. Communities and care of reconciliation
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18
Q

What is a peace circle?

A

Where everyone sits in a circle and a ‘talking piece’ is passed from one person to another

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19
Q

What are three evaluation points of Restorative justice?

A
  1. Not all offenders admit to their crimes
  2. Ethical concerns - if victim feels worse after
  3. Good at reducing recidivism - 14% reduction in re-offending
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20
Q

What are three biological reasons for offending behaviour?

A
  1. A historical approach
  2. Genetic
  3. Neural
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21
Q

What are four psychological reasons for offending behaviour?

A
  1. Psychodynamic
  2. Eysenck’s personality theory
  3. Cognitive
  4. Differential association
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22
Q

What was Lomroso’s theory?

A

The atavistic form in where offenders were born with specific facial features that distincted them as criminal i.e. high cheekbones and a hooked nose

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23
Q

What was Lombroso’s evidence?

A

He and co-workers studies over 50,000 bodies. In one study of 383 convicted Italian criminals, 21% had 1 atavistic trait and 43% had 5

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24
Q

What are the three types of criminal Lombroso distinguished between?

A
  1. Born criminals - atavistic form
  2. Insane criminals - mental illness
  3. Criminaloids - large general class of offenders
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25
Q

What did Sheldon believe?

A

That people could be classified into three different body types which would determine their personality traits

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26
Q

What were the three body types that Sheldon classified

A

Ectomorph - fat and soft
Endomorph - thin and fragile
Mesomorph - muscular and hard

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27
Q

What are three evaluation points of the historic approach for explaining offending behaviour?

A
  1. No control group to compare to non-criminals
  2. Scientific racism (features defined are towards people of African decent)
  3. Doesn’t explain why women commit crimes
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28
Q

What does the genetic theory propose?

A

That one or more gene can predispose us to criminal behaviour

29
Q

What study did Brunner do to support the genetic theory?

A

Researched 28 members of a Dutch family with a History of impulsive and violent criminal behaviour. He studies the DNA of male members and found that they all shared a gene which led to particularly low MAOA

30
Q

What is the diathesis-stress model?

A

The interaction between genes and the environment.

31
Q

What are epigenetics?

A

Genes are turned on or off by epigenomes, which have been affected by the environment

32
Q

What were Caspi’s findings that supported the Diathesis-stress model

A

Men with low MAOA genes had experienced maltreatment when they were babies - Responsible for 44% of violent crimes in New Zealand

33
Q

What was Raines research into neural explanations?

A

71 brain imaging studies showed that murderers and psychopaths have reduced functioning in the prefrontal cortex. He also found that murder who were found not guilty due to insanity had abnormal asymmetries in their limbic system, particularly in the amygdala.

34
Q

What are two evaluation points of Genetic studies?

A

Cant explain non-violent crimes
Research support - Crowe studied adopted children who had a biological parent with a criminal record and found they have a 50% greater chance of having a criminal record themselves.

35
Q

What are two evaluation points of the neural explanation?

A

RWA - Could lead to treatment i.e. giving criminals certain diets to enhance serotonin levels

36
Q

What does the cognitive explanation suggest?

A

That the way we think leads to criminal behaviour.

37
Q

What are two cognitive distortions?

A

Minimalization
Hostile attribution bias

38
Q

What research support was done for Hostile attribution bias?

A

55 violent offenders were presented with images emotionally ambiguous facial expressions. When compared with control group, offenders were more likely than non-violent Ps to perceive the images as angry or hostile.

39
Q

What research support was there for minimalization?

A

26 convicted rapists, 54% denied they had committed the offence at all and 40% minimised the harm they had caused to the victim.

40
Q

What is level of moral reasoning?

A

Kohlberg identifies three levels if moral reasoning; preconventional, conventional and postconventional

41
Q

What is the preconventional level?

A

Accepting the rules of authority, understand bad behaviour has negative consequences learn as children.

42
Q

What is the conventional level?

A

Believing that conforming to social rules is desirable, don’t do it for self-interest but for the benefits of human relationships

43
Q

What is the postconventional level?

A

No longer accept social rules and just comply. Believe human rights are more important than the law

44
Q

How does level of moral reasoning link to criminality?

A

Criminals have lower levels of moral reasoning than others. Criminals to not progress from the preconventional level of moral reasoning.

45
Q

What are two evaluation points on Level of moral reasoning?

A

Gender bias - Gilligan found that Kohlberg’s theory was based only on males
Culture bias - Gibbs maintained that Kohlberg’s post-conventional stage should be abandoned since it contains Western cultural bias

46
Q

What is Differential Association theory?

A

A theory developed by Edwin Sutherland proposing that through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for criminal behaviour

47
Q

What are two evaluation points of Differential association theory?

A
  1. Nature vs Nurture - completely ignores any inherited or biological factors which would help explain individual differences in regards to vulnerability in DAT
  2. RWA - can explain crimes such as illegal downloading, for example, it is breaking the law but still so many people do it as it is deemed acceptable in society
48
Q

What is the bottom-up approach?

A

David Canter developed a data driven approach where statistical techniques are used to produce predictions about the likely characteristics of an offender

49
Q

What case did Canter use the bottom-up approach?

A
50
Q

what are two methods of the bottom-up (data-driven) approach

A
  1. investigative psychology
  2. Geographical profiling
51
Q

What are the two stages to investigative psychology

A

Interpersonal coherence - people are consistent in much of their behaviour therefore there will be links between elements of the crime and how people behave in everyday life
Forensic awareness - Some behaviours may indicate awareness of police forensic techniques and past experiences the offender may of had

52
Q

What is an evaluation point of investigative psychology?

A

Copson surveyed 48 UK police forces using this method over 75% of police officers said it was useful however 3% led to identification of offender. This shows that police officer find it useful however it doesn’t always lead to a successful conviction

53
Q

What is geographical profiling?

A

Investigating the offenders locations of crime

54
Q

What is an evaluation point of geographical profiling?

A

Rossmo found that it can be useful in prioritising house-to-house searches however it can not distinguish between multiple offenders in the same area

55
Q

What is the circle theory?

A

This theory proposes that offenders have a spatial mindset - they commit their crimes within an imaginary mindset. It distinguishes two types of criminal; Marauder - the offender is in home area when crime is committed or they are a commuter- the offender travels to another area and commits a crime

56
Q

What are two evaluation points of offender profiling/ comparing?

A
  1. Offender profiling cant identify the offender however can narrow the search. However if the search is narrowed too much this can lead to wrongful convictions
  2. The bottoms-up technique is more scientific as it uses more statistics however, the data being analysed is only based on the offenders that have been caught therefore it can still be open to researcher bias.
57
Q

What are the four key stages of Top-down profiling?

A
  1. Data assimilation - Profiler gather data on the crime scene, background info on offender and details of the crime itself
  2. Class classification - the crime will be classified as Organised or disorganised
  3. Criminal profile made - psychical features, behaviours, habits and beliefs
  4. Crime assessment - A written report is given to the police, people matching the profile are identified
58
Q

What are two evaluation points of Top-down profiling?

A
  1. Alison et al found that judgements of offender profiles were not accurate. police officers were given fake and real profiles and asked to rate them, 50% of cases were rated as ‘generally accurate’ or ‘very accurate’ by those police officers
  2. A possible third offender - some offenders could commit crimes which are both organised and disorganised. Canter et al reviewed 100 real life serial killer cases and found no clear division between organised and disorganised criminals
59
Q

What is the main belief of the psychodynamic approach?

A

That experiences from your childhood can lead to offending behaviour

60
Q

What was Bowlby’s proposal in psychodynamic theory?

A

In the 40s it was understood that if a child was separated from their mother for a long period that theirs the possibility that that child will suffer. He believed separation will only have this effect if this happens before the age of 2.5

61
Q

What was Bowlby’s study in the psychodynamic explanation of offending behaviour?

A

An oppertunity sample of 88 children was selected from the clinic where Bowlby worked. 44 of these children werre reffered to Bowlby due to theft whereas the other 44 were reffered as a control due to their emotional unstableness.

62
Q

What were the results of Bowlby’s study?

A

He found that 32% of the ‘thieves’ had experienced ‘early and prolonged separation from their mothers’ which he described as emotionless psychopaths whereas the ‘normal’ kids experienced none

63
Q

What was the conclusion of Bowlby’s study?

A

That maternal deprivation in the child’s early life caused permanent emotional damage. He diagnosed this as a condition and called it affectionless psychopathy.

64
Q

What is the Superego?

A

Develops around the age of four through identification with the same sex parent

65
Q

What is the result of a weak Superego?

A

Unable to control the ID therefore induvidual acts impulsively on desires

66
Q

What is the result of a harsh Superego?

A

identification with a very strict parent, anytime they act on an impulse, they have a strong feeling of guilt

67
Q

What is the result of a deviant Superego?

A

Normal identification with same sex parent meaning they will take on their parents same moral attitudes

68
Q

What are two evaluation points of Psychodynamic explanation for offending behaviour?

A
  1. Gender bias - The Freuderian theory suggests that girls have less strong identification with their mothers compared to boys and dads. Meaning that women should have a weaker superego and be more aggressive.
  2. Lacks temporal validity - doesn’t account for same sex parents
69
Q

What was Eysenck’s questionnaire?

A

A form of psychological test which locates respondents along dimensions to determine their personality type

A-Levels (7 decks)

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