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Criminology A-Level > Unit 2 - Criminological theories - 2.2 Describe individualistic theories of criminality > Flashcards

Unit 2 - Criminological theories - 2.2 Describe individualistic theories of criminality Flashcards

1
Q

Psychodynamic theories - Psychoanalysis

According to Sigmund Freud, what determines our personality and future behaviour?

A

Our childhood

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2
Q

What three elements make up the human personality?

A

The Id, The ego and The super ego

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3
Q

What is the Id?

A

Located in the unconscious, instinctive, ‘animal’ part of the mind. It contains powerful, selfish, pleasure-seeking needs and drives such as food, sex and sleep. The Id is governed by the ‘pleasure principle’ - the blind desire to satisfy urges at any cost. If we acted on these urges whenever we felt them it would lead to anti-social or criminal behaviour

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4
Q

What is the Ego?

A

Freud saw our behaviour as the result of the struggle between the Id and the Superego. The ego’s role is to strike a balance between their conflicting demands. The ego is driven by the ‘reality principle’ - it learns from our experiences in the real world, actions have consequences. The ego seeks to control the Ids urges while still finding ways to satisfy them

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5
Q

What is the Superego?

A

Contains our conscience or moral rules, which we learn through interactions with our parents. Through socialisation, the child learns its parents idea of right and wrong and the superego develops as a sort of ‘nagging parent’. If we act in contrary to the superego it punishes us with feelings of guilt and anxiety

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6
Q

According to psychoanalytic theories, what causes anti-social behaviour?

A

Abnormal relationship with parents eg neglect or excessively strict parenting

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7
Q

What can these abnormal relationships cause for children’s superegos?

A

They can get a weak, over-harsh or deviant superego

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8
Q

What is a weakly developed superego?

A

The individual will feel less guilt about an anti-social action and less inhibition about acting on Id’s urges

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9
Q

What is a too harsh and unforgiving superego?

A

Creates deep-seated guilt in the individuals, who then craves punishment as a release for these feelings. The person may engage in repeat offending in order to be punished

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10
Q

What is a deviant superego?

A

A child is successfully socialised but into a deviant moral code. A son may have a perfectly good relationship with his criminal father and so he internalises his father’s criminal values. As a result, his superego would not inflict guilt feelings on him for contemplating criminal acts

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11
Q

Psychodynamic theories - Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory

According to Bowlby, what causes deviant or anti-social behaviour?

A

Maternal deprivation. In his eyes a child needs a close relationship with its primary carer from birth to the age of 5 in order to develop normally

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12
Q

What can happen to a child if they do not form the correct attachment at an early age?

A

The child will not be able to form meaningful emotional relationships with others. This is known as ‘affectionless psychopathy’. In some cases this can lead to criminal behaviour.

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13
Q

Briefly outline the evidence that supports Bowlby’s theory

A

Study of 44 juvenile thieves who had been referred to a child guidance clinic. 39% of the thieves had suffered from maternal deprivation before the age of 5, compared to 5% of control group of non-delinquents

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14
Q

Psychological theories - Eysenck’s personality theory

According to Eysenck, what is criminality the result of?

A

For Eysenck criminality is a result of a particular personality type

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15
Q

What two dimensions is our personality made up of?

A

Extraversion versus introversion (E)

Neuroticism versus emotional stability (N)

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16
Q

What are the 3 dimensions of personality identified by Eysenck?

A

Extraverted, Introverted and Neurotic

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17
Q

Outline Extraverted

A

Outgoing, sociable, impulsive, carefree, optimistic, aggressive, short tempered and unreliable

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18
Q

Outline Introverted

A

Reserved, inward looking, thoughtful, serious, quiet, self-controlled, reliable and permissive

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19
Q

Outline Neurotic

A

Anxious, moody, depressed, prone to overreacting

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20
Q

Describe the Eysenck personality questionnaire

A

Eysenck devised a questionnaire to measure people’s personality traits, ranking them on a E scale and N scale. For example, people with a high E score are very extroverted and people with a low E score are very introverted. Eysenck found that most people have personalities around the middle on both scales. However, criminals score high on both E scale and N scale. In other words, criminals tend to be strongly extraverted and neurotic

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21
Q

What is meant by conditioning?

A

Some psychologists argue that through experience we learn to seek pleasure and aim to avoid pain. For example, if we misbehave we are punished and so we learn to stop doing it as to avoid further punishment. This process is called ‘conditioning’. Eysenck argues that we learn through conditioning, but some individuals inherit a nervous system that causes them to develop a criminal personality

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22
Q

Briefly explain Eysenck’s argument that genetic inheritance can cause a criminal personality in the case of Extraverts

A

Have a nervous system that needs high levels of stimulation from their environment so they are constantly seeking excitement. This leads to impulsive, rule-breaking behaviour. In turn, this is likely to lead to punishment.

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23
Q

Briefly explain Eysenck’s argument that genetic inheritance can cause a criminal personality in the case of Neurotics

A

Harder to condition into following society’s rules because their high anxiety levels prevent them from learning from punishment for their mistakes

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24
Q

Briefly describe the additional personality dimension of psychoticism

A

In his later research, Eysenck added psychoticism (P) as a further personality dimension. People with a high P score are more likely to engage in criminality. They tend to be solitary misfits who are cruel, insensitive, aggressive and lacking in empathy. High P can overlap with serious psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia

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25
Q

Learning theories

Describe 3 key features of learning theories

A
  • Criminal behaviour is learned behaviour
  • We learn this behaviour from family and peer groups (social environment)
  • The key role of reinforcement and punishment in the learning process
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26
Q

Learning theories - Sutherland’s differential association theory

According to Sutherland, where do individuals learn criminal behaviour?

A

Family and peer groups (including working groups)

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27
Q

What are the two factors that can result in criminal behaviour according to Sutherland?

A

Imitation and Learned attitudes

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28
Q

Briefly describe Imitation

A

Individuals can acquire criminal skills and techniques through observing those around them

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29
Q

Briefly describe Learned attitudes

A

Individuals are exposed to attitudes about the law from family and friends. Some of these may be favourable to the law and others unfavourable. If the individual internalises more unfavourable than favourable attitudes, they are more likely to become a criminal

30
Q

Use the example of white collar crime to illustrate Sutherland’s idea of learned attitudes

A

Sutherland found that In studies in workplaces many normalised criminal behaviour (by claiming ‘everyone is doing it’). This made it easier for individual members to justify their own criminal behaviour

31
Q

Learning theories - Operant learning theory

What is the basic idea of operant learning theory?

A

Work of B.F Skinner. Its basic idea is that if a particular behaviour is rewarded, it is likely to be repeated. However, behaviour that has an undesirable outcome will not be repeated

32
Q

What Is meant by ‘behaviourism’?

A

The cause of someone’s behaviour lies in the reinforcements (rewards) and punishments that shape it

33
Q

Briefly describe how differential reinforcement theory explains criminal behaviour

A

All behaviour is the result of reinforcements and punishments, if so then this must explain most criminal behaviour. An example of this is Jeffrey’s differential reinforcement theory. Jeffrey argues that criminal behaviour is learned through the reinforcements of particular behaviours. If crime has more rewarding consequences than punishing ones, they will be more likely to engage in criminal activity. These rewards could be financial but also emotional eg respect of peers. If we want to explain someone’s offending we need to look at the balance of rewards and punishments for the individual

34
Q

Operant conditioning

Explain Thorndike’s ‘law of effect’

A

Any behaviour that is followed by favourable consequences is likely to happen again but any behaviour that is followed by unfavourable consequences is not likely to happen again

35
Q

In Skinner’s experiments, what was he trying to discover?

A

Proving how rewards and punishments affect our behaviour

36
Q

What was the goal of the Skinner Box experiment (operant chamber)?

A

Teach the mice to touch the lever

37
Q

What did Skinner call rewards?

A

Reinforcements

38
Q

How did skinnier reinforce the behaviour of the mouse?

A

He would give it food every time it touched the lever

39
Q

What happened to the behaviour of the mouse as a result of the reinforcement?

A

The mouse would continue to press the lever

40
Q

What did Skinner do to the mouse in the Skinner box to demonstrate negative reinforcement?

A

He would electrocute the mouse if it didn’t touch the lever

41
Q

Describe the example of negative reinforcement in our own life

A

Being nagged by our mums to clean our rooms. ‘Nagging’ stops once you clean your room

42
Q

Describe how Skinner demonstrated punishment in the Skinner box

A

Skinner would electrocute the mouse if it touched the lever.

43
Q

Explain how Skinner’s work on operant conditioning might help us to understand why some people commit crime

A

Individuals may be rewarded for criminal behaviour and so may continue to commit these offences or they may not receive negative reinforcement for these crimes

44
Q

Learning theories - Social learning theory

According to Bandura, how do we learn much of our behaviour?

A

Through imitating others. For this reason, his approach is known as the observational or social learning theory

45
Q

What did Bandura mean by ‘models’?

A

Other people by which we model our behaviour on. We are more likely to imitate models if they are of a high status

46
Q

How do consequences affect our behaviour?

A

Whether we imitate their behaviour depends on the consequences of the certain behaviour. If we see the ‘model’ being rewarded for their behaviour we are more likely to imitate it than if we see them being punished for it

47
Q

Briefly describe the three groups used in the Bobo doll experiment

A

Group 1 - Saw a version of the film where the model was being rewarded for beating the doll up with praise

Group 2 - Saw a version in which the model was being punished

Group 3 (control group) - In this version, the model’s behaviour was neither rewarded or punished

48
Q

Briefly describe the responses of each of the groups in the experiment

A

Group 1 - Imitated the aggressive behaviour they had seen been rewarded

Group 2 - Least likely to imitate the behaviour as they had seen the model be punished for their behaviour

Group 3 - Imitated the aggressor but less so than Group 1

49
Q

Briefly outline what the Bobo doll experiment shows about criminal behaviour

A

If an individual sees a model being rewarded for criminality, the theory predicts that the behaviour is more likely to be imitated

50
Q

What was Bandura curious to learn with this experiment?

A

How we learn, whether or not we learn through others actions

51
Q

What is a Bobo doll?

A

An inflatable doll that can be knocked down and pops up again

52
Q

Briefly explain what Bandura did in his experiments

A

He would film adults beating up the Bobo doll with hammers and punches and show it to children and then record what the children did to the Bobo doll

53
Q

What was Bandura trying to find out about the children?

A

How they would behave after watching the film

54
Q

What did the children in the experiment do to the Bobo doll?

A

Beat It up and imitate the actions from the model from the film

55
Q

What did the children’s behaviour show?

A

Children could learn from what other people would do

56
Q

Describe the criticism received about the experiment

A

People said that if the children did not know about Bobo dolls before the experiment they would not know how else to act with it, apart from what was shown in the video

57
Q

How did Bandura change his experiment after the criticism?

A

He would have children watch the film and then he would put them in a room with other children and see how they acted

58
Q

How did the children who had watched the Bobo doll behave, compared to the children who had not?

A

They acted more violently

59
Q

What does this prove?

A

By watching violence it does translate into becoming more violent in other aspects of life

60
Q

What is “modelling”?

A

We watch other people do certain behaviour, they then act as a model for our own behaviour

61
Q

What are role models?

A

Parents or older siblings of whom we ‘mode’ our behaviour off

62
Q

Why is modelling so important?

A

We look at other people and we learn to behave and act eg eating cake or putting 20p into the lollipop machine

63
Q

Cognitive theories of crime

What is meant by ‘cognition’?

A

Thinking and other mental processes like attitudes, beliefs, problem solving, decision making and how we interpret the world

64
Q

What do cognitive theories of crime argue?

A

These mental processes shape our behaviour

65
Q

Cognitive theories of crime - Criminal personality theory

What is the key idea of Yochelson and Samenov?

A

They proposed criminals have faulty thinking, making them more likely to commit crime based on a long term study of 240 male offenders most of whom lived in psychiatric hospital

66
Q

What did Yochelson and Samenow base their theory off of?

A

It was based on a long term study of 240 male offenders most of whom lived in psychiatric hospital

67
Q

Briefly explain what is meant by ‘thinking errors’

A

Criminals show errors in their thinking and decision making leading them to commit crime such as lying, secretiveness, need for power and control, lack of trust, uniqueness and victim stance

68
Q

What are the top ten criminal thinking errors?

A

Closed channel thinking, Victimstance, views self as a good person, lack of effort, lack of interest in responsible performance, lack of perspective, fear of fear, power thrust, uniqueness and ownership attitude

69
Q

Cognitive theories of crime - Kohlberg’s moral development theory

Briefly outline Kohlberg’s view of how our ideas of right and wrong develop

A

Kohlberg argued that ideas of right and wrong develop through stages from childhood to adulthood. In Childhood these ideas are pre-conventional and based off punishment and reward but in adulthood they are based on moral principles and values

70
Q

What does this theory suggest about criminals moral development?

A

Criminals have a less developed set of morals. They are stuck in a child like state based on punishment and reward rather than how their actions affect others, making them more likely to reoffend

Criminology A-Level (9 decks)

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