criminal psychology Flashcards

Question

what are the stages of self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 1

1. Labelling 2.Treating the person according to the label 3. the individual reacts to the expectations by internalising these beliefs and start to behave according to the label 4. this behaviour then confirms the label so the behaviour continues

Answer 2

JAHODA ashanti tribe monday= peaceful wednesday= aggressive jahoda looked at criminal records and found 22% of violent offences were by boys born on Wednesday and 6.9% by boys born on Monday JACOBSEN In school, IQ tests were given at the start of the year and teachers told random students they were 'bloomers' at the end of the year the 'bloomers' had a higher IQ

Answer 3

-1 CULTURE Jahoda's study was only in 1 culture so lacks representative of ppl in Western Civilisation and how they react to labelling -Reductionist other explanations like SLT observation and imitation of role models

Answer 4

a police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime which encourages them to RECREATE THE OG context in order to INCREASE the accessibility and accuracy of stored information

Answer 5

1. REPORT EVERYTHING encouraged to report everything they remember 2. CONTEXT REINSTATEMENT encouraged to recall details of the scene (weather, mood, clothes etc) 3.CHANGE IN RECALL ORDER encouraged to recall the event from different stages 4.CHANGE IN PERSPECTIVE asked to recall what other people may have seen steps 3 and 4 are designed to reduce the impact of schemas

Answer 6

TULVING - stated that episodic memory is dependent on cues and context LOFTUS AND PALMER researched on effect of misleading qs on EWT 45 American students watched a videotaped traffic accident and were asked a q.... this research helped to develop this interview technique

Answer 7

TIME CONSUMING -the CI requires specialist training... many forces may not have the time KOHNKEN et al conducted a meta- analysis and found CI's to have higher incorrect information recalled during the CI

Answer 8

used in response to a series of cases in which intimidation and manipulation from police interviews led to false conviction e.g: the central park 5 they made sure -interrogation is NO LONGER INTIMIDATING -MANIPULATION is NO LONGER used (leads to false convictions)

Answer 9

PEACE 1.Planning and Preparation 2.Explain and Engage 3.Account, Clarification + Challenge 4. Closure 5. Evaluate

Answer 10

plans aims, objectives, location considered, characteristics of interviewee

Answer 11

objectives of the interview should be explained

Answer 12

short questions, prompting e.g' tell me more', interviewer must remain neutral and NOT INTERUPT

Answer 13

Accurately summarise discussion, NOT END ABRUPTLY and allow suspect to ask questions

Answer 14

interviewer should evaluate if the aims were reached and reflect

Answer 15

KEBBELL -EI techniques are more likely to get a genuine confession compared to interviewer domestic techniques HOLMBERG + CHRISTIANSON study police interviews with murderers and sexual offenders and found that interviews characterised by intimidation dominance from police were associated with the most denies wheras interviews with respect have positive attitudes and more confessions

Answer 16

TIME CONSUMING planning and training to improve their interview methods is very time-consuming YERKES- DODSON LAW relationship between stress and recall accuracy is a 'n' shape the EI may not be the most efficient practice to gain most accurate episodic memory recall

Answer 17

Phase 1: Offense Analysis Phase 2: Understanding the function of offending Phase 3: Application of treatment

Answer 18

analyse offense to gain insight into motivations -can be challenging as often there are multiple reasons -might look at similar offences by others to see if there are similarities -this is idiographic trying to identify why the offence happened allows the forensic to asses reoffending risk and come up with ideas of how to remove/ reduce the risk

Answer 19

-what is the purpose of crime for the offender? e.g- Type of addiction, Fulfilling a craving or need (Hodge et al. 2011) e.g a rapist may be compensating for feelings of worthlessness by exerting power over the victim -psychological theory is useful to help figure out why

Answer 20

- psychological treatment started from looking at mental health problems which could still apply to criminals -ideally need some kind of intervention for the offender based on conclusions drawn -the rehabilitation programme should reflect the starting place of the offender, the risk of reoffending, and how likely the offender is to stick to the programme (their level of motivation) -Psychological formulation is a 'work in progress' and is reassessed and adapted based on the success of the diagnosis and treatment

Answer 21

to create hypotheses about what has led to someones criminal behaviour and why they may continue this behaviour

Answer 22

SHORT and focus on key features about the criminal behaviour

Answer 23

the criminals past and present relationships as well as social and economic circumstances

Answer 24

to decide HOW LIKELY an offender is to REOFFEND and also possible reasons why they MAY NOT be responding to treatments

Answer 25

HOLISTIC APPROACH -takes into account ALL aspects of the offenders life, so it is a holistic approach, making it more likely to be successful than therapies based only on one factor WHITEHEAD ET AL found that case formulation WORKED with the case or MR C, due to the fact it worked towards goals that were valued by Mr C. It helped him keep on track once he was released

Answer 26

DETAILED DATA MIGHT CONTRADICT ITSELF - it can be hard to come up with a treatment for an offender on a case formulation when there is a lot of data that may contradict itself TRAINING IS TIME CONSUMING -there is an issue when several different people are involved in creating a case formulation and implementing it as they ALSO need to be trained as well as the OG psychologist.

Answer 27

CBT/ Anger Management

Answer 28

looks at helping the way people manage their problems, behaviours and thoughts -it assumes the offender has the ability to control their anger -tries to identify a TRIGGER for their anger -anger results from COG + BEHAVIOURAL problem so treatment needs to tackle both -reflects on previous actions -allows them to see what EMOTIONS + FEELINGS were present in the act of the crime REDUCES REOFFENDER RATE

Answer 29

1. Cognitive Preparation 2. Skill Acquisition 3. Application of practice

Answer 30

offender is encouraged to reflect on their past behaviours and identify triggers and events that made them angry

Answer 31

therapist works with them to show then their response is IRRATIONAL and helps them REDEFINE the situations as non threatening offenders are taught a range of techniques and skills: breathing and controlling emotions

Answer 32

suggested that people deficient in particular types of minerals, vitamins and fatty acids are more likely to engage in violent behaviour therefore, if an offenders diet is improved, this should lead to significant improvements in their behaviour

Answer 33

high sugar diet causes changes in blood sugar levels high sugar foods = high in glucose levels = major insulin secretions = shortage of glucose = HYPOGLYCAEMIA this is associated with irritability, difficulty making judgements and violent outbursts

Answer 34

brain function depends on biochemical processes which rely on vits and minerals UNSATURATED FATTY ACIDS are the most important. particularly omega 3, Mg, Zinc and Iron a LACK of these nutrients have been linked to mental illnesses e.g: depression and also behavioural problems like aggression

Answer 35

1. first a baseline measurement of their diet is established this identifies which vitamins and minerals are missing 2. in most cases, a multi-vitamin is then added to the offenders diet, after which behaviour will be monitored over a period of time

Answer 36

ZAALBERG found that adding Mg, Vit D, omega 3 to young offenders decreased violent events by 34% and violent events increased for the control group BENTON found that children became MORE AGGRESSIVE when playing videogames as their blood sugar levels decreased, suggesting HYPOGLYCAEMIA does impact behaviour CHEAP

Answer 37

ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT- CBT CBT is longterm and treats the underlying cause whilst diet is only temporary CAUSE AND EFFECT difficult to establish causation between diet and crime as people with poorer diets are likely to be living in the worst social and economic conditions, which may be the ROOT CAUSE of offending GENERALISABILITY WITH OTHER CRIMES most of the studies show that improved diets can reduce aggressive behaviours BUT not all crimes have an aggressive nature e.g: theft, financial crimes

Answer 38

- post event information/discussion -leading questions -weapon focus -anxiety/stress

Answer 39

information arriving after an event that may affect an eye-witnesses memory of what happened

Answer 40

where witnesses to the same event have had the opportunity to talk to each other about what they saw -this can lead to people changing their own individual testimony to conform to someone elses

Answer 41

1. NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE conforming out of a desire to fit in 2. INFORMATIONAL SOCIAL INFLUENCE conforming out of a desire to be right a witness may doubt their own memory because they believe the other witnesses have better information than them so therefore change their testimony as they do not want to be wrong

Answer 42

GABBERT got pairs of participants to watch different videos of the same event. 1 group of pairs were encourages to discuss the event before they had to individually recall what they saw 71% of ppts who had the chance to discuss the event incorrectly brought up those things in the discussion

Answer 43

BODNER ET AL showed that the effects of post-event discussion can be MINIMISED if people are warned about it. people who were told second hand information could be unreliable had UNINFLUENCED testimonies

Answer 44

questions which impy or suggest the answer that the questioner is looking for this may be unintentional on the part of the questioner OR part of an intentional attempt to lead the witness to give a specific answer

Answer 45

VALENTINE AND COXON compared the accuracy of recall of a kidnapping video between 3 groups: children, young adults and the elderly -they found that young adults had the BEST memory but the young children were most likely to be influenced by the leading questions

Answer 46

YUILLE + CUTSHALL interviewed witnesses to a real gunshop robbery in Canada several months later. They used leading questions and compared their responses to the original testimonies from the police -they found that the ppts still had accurate detailed memories of the event so leading questions had A LIMITED effect on memory recall

Answer 47

LOFTUS AND PALMER- disneyland showed 4 groups of ppts different leaflets of a DIsneyland voucher, which Bugs Bunny was included (bugs bunny belongs to warner brothers) 40% of ppts in the final group said they saw Bugs Bunny and shook his hand.

Answer 48

an eyewitnesses concentration on a weapon so they have a LESS accurate description on other aspects of the crime, including the perpetrators face

Answer 49

presence of a weapon leads to selective attention

Answer 50

LOFTUS AND PALMER investigated 'weapon focus' and found more eye fixations on a gun compared to a checkbook 40% correct lineup = checkbook 11% correct lineup = gun

Answer 51

OWN AGE BIAS ppl tend to identify faces more accurately if they are closer to the age of the eyewitness SURPRISE NOT WEAPON ANXIETY it can be suggested ppts may focus on the weapon as they are surprised by what they see (not scared or anxiours) PICKEL conducted an experiment where a thief entered a SALON carrying scissors, a handgun, wallet and a raw chicken it was found that the EW accuracy was sig poor in the unusual conditions: chicken and handgun decreased validity of weapon focus and anxiety as we cannot make sure if it was the weapon or element of surprise

Answer 52

it can be argued that anxiety can have a positive impact on memory STRESS creates physiological arousal which can lead to heightened awareness + attention, meaning a person pays MORE attention to things and therefore have better recall

Answer 53

suggests that accuracy of recall increases as anxiety increases, however, if the anxiety becomes too strong, the accuracy of recall starts to decline again -there is a peak accuracy that can hit 'n' relationship

Answer 54

JOHNSON AND SCOTT ppts were invited to a lab and whilst waiting they overheard an argument condition 1: man holding a pen w grease on his hands condition 2: man walked out with a knife and covered in blood pen condition: 49% accuracy knife condition: 33% accuracy supports weapon focus

Answer 55

YUILLE + CUTSHALL interviewed real life witnesses to a gun shooting in Canada -witnesses were asked to say how stressed they were out of 7 witnesses who reported higher stress levels = 88% accuracy compared to those who were less stressed = 75% accuracy

Answer 56

TOO SIMPLISTIC anxiety is HARD to define and measure therefore low validity as other factors affect anxiety ETHICAL ISSUES BPS protection of harm may be broken therefore this questions the credibility of research ppts are experiencing more harm than they would in everyday life so hard to replicate DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS - research done in lab

Answer 57

statistics have shown that men commit more crimes than females males may be associated with aggression and risk-taking more often than females women are less likely to be convicted of crime, and receive lower sentences due to sexism double-deviance is where woman are given harsher punishments due to their crime for violating social norms

Answer 58

RAGATZ and RUSSEL in crimes of passion, female defendants were more likely to be rated as LESS CULPABLE/DESERVING of blame and given manslaughter sentencing instead of murder sentense USEFUL APPLICATION research into the impact of gender on jury decision making can help REDUCE BIAS (teach jury about gender bias)

Answer 59

EXTERNAL VALIDITY OF MOCK TRIALS ARE LOW as isolating one variable at a time is NOT a representative of real life trials, as there are NO REAL CONSEQUENCES of a mock trial therefore decreasing the pressure on jurors OTHER FACTORS can also have an impact on the decision so it is hard to determine the extent to which gender actually has an impact

Answer 60

not only based on an individuals natural beauty, but also the clothes they wear or the way they present themselves e.g: smart = not committed a crime similarly, if they present themselves as unkept, they may be perceived as less trustworthy and therefore more likley to have committed the crime research has shown that juries are often unconsciously biased towards attractive individuals 'HALO EFFECT'= where 1 initial positive trait influences overall judgement (or vise versa)

Answer 61

DION ET AL this theory has been seen as defendants are advised to turn up smartly dressed as it is assumed that attractive people get a shorter sentence APPLICATION this knowledge on human bias has led to juries being constantly reminded and checked by the court to make sure they remain impartial ---> improves legitimacy of court decisions

Answer 62

SIGALL AND OSTROVE they found in their research that attractiveness can backfire in their research, mock jurors recommend a much LONGER SENTENCE for attractive defendants in crimes like FRAUD as jury believed the defendant used their attractiveness to commit the crime OTHER FACTORS: GENDER/RACE

Answer 63

if jury is white, they are more likely to find people of a different race more guilty white jurors may see themselves as 'in-group' and DISCRIMINATE against defenders of another race 'our-group' ---> social identity theory the impact of race on the jurors bias also depends of the year of the study and region e.g: South America= more likely to be prejudiced to Black people RACIAL BIAS= not treating minority group defendants equally, which has implications for jurors RACIAL IDENTITY= someones investment in their own race and culture, as well as focuses on the power difference regarding race

Answer 64

BRADBURRY AND WILLIAMS found that black defendants are less likely to be convicted by jurors that have a higher proportion of black jurors APPLICATION findings can be used to reduce bias dependent on race

Answer 65

OTHER FACTORS EXTERNAL VALIDITY OF MOCK TRIALS ARE LOW decreases the pressure they are under

Answer 66

SCHEMA theory: information received before the trial will be interpreted with their schemas and will add to the jurors pre-existing schema---> causing confabulation of the evidence presented RECONSTRUCTIVE MEM: if a juror receives info before and during the trial, they may integrate these 2 sources into 1 memory therefore NOT be able to distinguish between info presented in the media and court SOCIAL MEDIA makes it difficult to find jurors not exposed to info surrounding the trial, especially in high profile cases 2 types of pre-trial info: FACTUAL: about the case (incriminating info) so makes people seem guilty EMOTIONAL: info presented in order to create negative/positive judgements or emotions surrounding the defendant ALL GOES AGAINST 'innocent till proven guilty'

Answer 67

APPLICATION- this knowledge can be taught to jurors to tell them that outside information is unreliable to have a more valid conclusion a CONTENT ANALYSIS was carried of 30 mock jury cases found those exposed to NEGATIVE pre-trial publicity were MORE likely to find the defendants guilty

Answer 68

OTHER FACTORS LOW EXTERNAL VALIDITY OF MOCK TRIALS

Answer 69

to investigate the effect of misleading information given to eye witness accounts (episodic memory)

Answer 70

Independent groups design 45 american students watched video-taped accidents and were asked several questions after 'how fast were the cars going when they ___ into each other' contacted, bumped, hit, collided, smashed

Answer 71

verb used affected the interpretation of speed smashed = 40.5 mph contacted= 31.8 mph

Answer 72

150 american students shown a 1 min clip of a multiple car traffic accident they were split into 3 groups and asked 'how fast were the cars going when they SMASHED, HIT, CONTROL each other' ppts were given a questionaire a week later 'did you see the broken glass'

Answer 73

SMASHED cond: 16 said yes HIT cond: 7 said yes CONTROL cond: 6 said yes THERE WAS NO GLASS

Answer 74

the verb given in the q gave expectations about the speed and details of the car crash exp 1: misleading info can DISTORT episodic memory exp 2: misleading info can make FALSE memories

Answer 75

to investigate whether the racial composition of a jury and the race of the defendant will affect the likelihood of conviction

Answer 76

jurors will show 'in-group and out group bias' - more likely to ACUIT defendant of the same ethnicity -more likely to CONVICT defendant of different ethnicity

Answer 77

used SECONDARY DATA from Hannaford- Agor et al's study this study analysed real trials in 4 US states: New York, Washington, Arizona, California they only selected trials where the DEFENDANT WAS BLACK (60% of all trials) white or hispanic defendants were ELIMINATED (too small)

Answer 78

IV: racial composition of the jury (%) DV: conviction (guilty or not guilty)

Answer 79

1. black defendants are less likely to be convicted with a black majority jury (in-group) 2. black defendants are more likely to be convicted with a white majority jury (out-group) 3. juries of hispanic jurors were more likely to convict black defendants but not as much as white jurors Juries were MORE LIKELY to convict a BLACK DEFENDANT of DRUG CRIMES compared to violent or property crimes

Answer 80

Racial makeup of the jury can have an impact on their decision therefore race needs to be considered when choosing a jury

Answer 81

G- ethnocentric (america) R- OBJECTIVE DATA (O if defendant was not convicted of a crime and I if they were) SECOnDARY DATA: less time consuming A: applied to prevent bias to ingroup V: real life trials, stress, thoughts so reduced demand characteristics INTERNAL VALIDITY LOW: other factors like age, gender E: secondary data--> work is already published so should pass ethical guidelines

criminal psychology Flashcards

(106 cards)