Forensic Psychology

Question 1

What is offender profiling ?

Answer 1

Describes a criminal based on certain factors

Question 2

What are the 4 main stages of the top down approach ?

Answer 2

Data assimilation - gathering all data from the crime scene
Crime scene classification- organised or disorganised
Crime reconstruction- hypothesis of crime
Profile generation - rough sketch of criminal

Question 3

One strength of the top down approach

Answer 3

Douglas - 77% of the time it helped focus investigation

Question 4

What are the limitations of the top down approach ?

Answer 4

Alison - outdated suggest personality is stable over time

Reductionist - classification is too simple

Less scientific

Question 5

What did canter suggest about the bottom up approach ?

Answer 5

Make no initial assumption about the offender
They use interpersonal coherence ( how offender is at scene)
This means there’s variations in their personal life if that how they are at the scene.

Question 6

What was John Duffy’s case?

Answer 6

Carried up 24 sexual attacks and 3 murders of women near railways.

Canter analysed the geographical details and evidence drew up surprisingly accurate profile

Question 7

What is investigative psychology ?

Answer 7

Statistical procedures to theory to analyse he crime scene evidence

Interpersonal coherence
Significance of time and place
Forensic awareness
Smallest space analysis

Question 8

Evaluation of investigative psychology

Answer 8

Canter - analysed 66 sexual assault cases using smallest space analysis, clear common patterns

Scientific as uses computer data base

Question 9

What are the two models of offender behaviour ?

Answer 9

Marauders
Commuters

Question 10

What did lundrigan and canter find about offender profiling ?

Answer 10

The offenders home was central in the pattern
The disposal sites tended to be if different directions
Effect was more evident for offenders who travelled a shorter distance

Question 11

Evaluation of geographical profiling

Answer 11

Supporting research - lundrigan and canter
Objective and reliable
Scientific
Infamous failures - Colin stagg

Question 12

What did Lombrosso suggest for biological explanation of crime?

Answer 12

Criminality was inherited
Studied 383 dead Italian criminals and 3839 living found 40% had atavistic characteristics
Large jaw
Large chins
Upturned nose
Low sloping forehead

Question 13

Evaluations of lomrossos biological explanations of crime

Answer 13

Used scientific methods
Delisi - scientifically racist - predominantly African characteristics
Temporal validity- not valid today

Question 14

Twin studies for genetic explantions of crime

Answer 14

Christiansen - looked at 3586 twins in Denmark found 35% concordance in MZ and 12% in DZ
Lange - 13 pairs of MZ and 17 pairs of DZ found MZ concordance was 77% compared to 12% DZ

Question 15

What did mednick find in adoption studies ?

Answer 15

Used data from a danish adoption bank
Found 20% whose biological parents had convictions had convictions themselves
13.5% whose biological parents weren’t criminals had convictions

Question 16

What is chromosome abnormality ?

Answer 16

Where men who have an extra Y chromosome are more likely to be criminal.
Jacobs found only 1.5% of the prison population had an extra Y chromosome compared to 0.5% of the population

Question 17

What are mirror neurons?

Answer 17

Fire when an act is observed the same when you do the same act

Question 18

What did raine find about individuals with APD ?

Answer 18

Had a 11% reduction in the volume of grey matter in their prefrontal cortex and reduced autonomic response

Question 19

How does mirror neurones support SLT?

Answer 19

Role models
Imitation
Learn through observation

Question 20

What are the three types of personality that Eysenck suggested causes crime?

Answer 20

Extrovertism- risk taking behaviour due to under active nervous system

Neuroticism - unstable mood and behaviour

Pyschoticism - heartless and unable to feel remorse

Question 21

How did Eysneck prove the three types of personality ?

Answer 21

Eysneck and his wife did a study on 2070 male prisoners and found they scored higher scores on all three personality types compared to the 2422 control group

Question 22

Evaluation of Eysneck’s personality

Answer 22

Cultural bias - Hispanic is less extraverted
Digman suggested there’s other types such as openness and agreeableness
Reductionist

Question 23

What are the three levels of moral reasoning according to kohlberg ?

Answer 23

Pre conventional - punishment orientation

Conventional - maintaining social order

Post conventional - morality of contract and individual rights

Question 24

Explain kohlbergs research on moral reasoning

Answer 24

Presented w/c boy with moral dilemmas and questioned them. Found they were more likely to be pre conventional

Question 25

What did chandler find about moral reasoning ?

Answer 25

Found that indicate who had high levels of moral reasoning which allows them to sympathise more

Question 26

What is one limitation of moral reasoning according?

Answer 26

Cognitive theories can’t explain all behaviour. Middle class have pre conventional reasoning and some have non

Question 27

What are cognitive distortions ?

Answer 27

Faulty processing in our logic which leads to criminality

Question 28

What is minimisation?

Answer 28

Offenders undermine the significance of their crime to have less emotional regrets

Question 29

What is hostile attribution theory ?

Answer 29

Offenders view emotional ambiguous situations as aggressive

Question 30

What did schonenberg and justye suggest about hostile attribution?

Answer 30

Present 55 violent offenders with emotionally ambiguous faces when compared to a control group they were more likely to see aggressive faces

Question 31

What did pollock and hashmall suggest about minimalisation ?

Answer 31

35% of a sample of child molesters said the crime was not sexual and 36% said they had consent

Question 32

What is meant by differential association?

Answer 32

Criminals learn behaviour

Question 33

What did farrington suggest about differential association ?

Answer 33

Had 411 males in a longitudinal study of working class backgrounds to show development of criminals. 41% had at least one conviction And family criminality and parental type causes crime as they imitate behaviour

Question 34

What is one limitation of differential association?

Answer 34

One limitation of differential association is it ignores free will to not accept pro criminal attitudes

Question 35

What are the three types of inadequate superegos according to Blackburn ?

Answer 35

Deviant - child internalised abnormal morals from parents Weak- lack of same sex parent during phallic stage Over harsh - craves punishment due to extreme parenting

Question 36

What is the idea of the inadequate superegos according based upon ?

Answer 36

Bowlby’s maternal deprivation - absent mother in critical period is irreversible and causes affectionate less psychopathy

Question 37

What is one limitation of psychodynamic theory of crime ?

Answer 37

One limitation of psychodynamic theory of crime is that many children grow up without the same sex parent and they don’t become criminals