biological explanations of criminal behaviour: amygdala Flashcards
(11 cards)
1
Q
define amygdala
A
- centre in brain responsible for emotions, emotional behaviour and motivation
2
Q
what happens to the amygdala when there’s a brain injury?
A
- becomes damaged
3
Q
what is the amygdala responsible for?
A
- controlling human emotions
4
Q
what can damage to the amygdala result in?
A
- person being unemotional
- may react excessively to their emotions as they can’t reduce them
5
Q
supporting evidence: brain scanning techniques
A
- evidence suggests that brain of psychopath (personality disorder making them difficult to interact with others) works differently that of a non-psychopath
6
Q
supporting evidence: Pardini et al
A
- neuroimaging study
- 26 year old men with smaller amygdalae were three times more likely than those of larger amygdalae to exhibit aggression, violence and psychopathic features three years later
- therefore suggest that amygdala size can predict future violence
7
Q
where has smaller amygdala volume been found?
A
- individuals diagnosed with psychopathic personalities
- also have higher levels of aggression
8
Q
opposing evidence: Fallon
A
- looked at brains of many individuals using MRI scans
- shown ability to identify those brains that belong to psychopathic individuals
- however, in 2006 he identified one brain in particular as psychopathic, but was incorrect
- brain he looked at on scan was actually his own
9
Q
other things: objectivity and reliability
A
- when relating to what’s found in scans to behaviour, it’s harder to achieve those qualities
- eg psychopathic tendencies are hard to relate to crime and violence directly
- there’s many factors: age, gender and early life experiences
- scan might show amygdala volume, but related this to aggression and criminal behaviour, doesn’t have same objectivity and validity
10
Q
other things (strength): amygdala size
A
- a lot of evidence relating to amygdala and size and possibly functioning to suggest that lower volume or less activity relates to problems with moral reasoning and control over behaviour + problems with learning fear responses
11
Q
other things: neuroimaging (Pardini)
A
- rm that shows reliable findings as more than one person can analyse scan pictures
- there’s validity in what’s being measured too, if amygdala is highlighted and then measured using the scan pictures
