paper 3 Flashcards

Question

not done*historical approach, activist form (biological explanation of offending behaviour)

Answer 1

‘genetic throwbacks’, incapable of conforming to modern society norms lombroso: shifted from moral approach to a more scientific, studied 4000 criminals, found that 40% of criminal acts had offenders with activist features they lack evolutionary development physical features: markers for criminals, strong jaw, facial asymmetries, narrow/sloping brows also included unemployment, criminal slang, insensitivity to pain - methodological issues, no control group, physiological conditions - issues of causation, ignores environmental factors, determinist + influential

Answer 2

twin and adoption studies suggest genes predispose offenders to crime, candidate genes: tiihonen et al, genetic analysis of about 800 offenders, found two genes that may be associated with violent crime, MAOA gene regulates serotonin and is linked to aggressive behaviour, CDH13 gene linked to substance abuse and adhd, 5-10% of severe violent crime in finland is attributable to these genotypes diathesis-stress model: a tendency to offending behaviour is due to a combination of genetic predisposition and a biological or psychological stressor or trigger e.g. criminal role models or dysfunctional upbringing - twin studies + support for diathesis-stress model

Answer 3

certain personality traits may lead to offending behaviour extroversion: underactive nervous system, risky behaviours, seek excitement neuroticism: unstable, jumpy psychotism: cold, prone to aggression, manipulative has a biological basis, personality is based on nervous system, emotional responses to events, innate/inherited crime by socialisation, consequences of actions, not socialised effectively scales/tests, esyencks personality questionnaire - oversimplified, digman suggested 5 factor model, openness, agreeableness and contentiousness - cultural differences, hispanic and african american, less introverted + support from eysenck and eysenck, 2000 prisoners, about 2400 controls, high e/n/p

Answer 4

cognitive factors lead to offending behaviour, lower level of moral reasoning, mistakes in processing kohlbergs model of moral reasoning, stage theory, offenders lower stage, have moral dilemmas and analysed responses and background preconventional morality: conventional morality: post conventional morality: cognitive distortions hostile attribution bias: misinterpret ambiguous situations as hostile, roots in childhood minimisation: downplay or deny the significance of an event or emotion + applications to cbt - descriptive not explanatory, can’t explain why faults exist + support for moral reasoning, palmer/hollin, 126 offenders, dilemmas and questionnaires

Answer 5

social learning theory of crime, learn through association and interactions with important people in our lives learned attitude towards crime: exposed to more pro criminal attitudes, mathematically predict learning of specific criminal acts: techniques, explains why convicts go on to reoffend farrington: longitudinal study over 40 years, 400 males, recorded convictions and self reported crimes, 41% one crime, 7% chronic reoffenders childhood risk factors + sub cultural differences - difficult to scientifically test, one pro is said to outweigh five - individual differences, free will

Answer 6

roots of behaviour are formed in childhood blackburn: inadequate superego theory superego, phallic, oedipus/electra complex, moral principles weak superego: same sex parent absent, immoral behaviour deviant superego: internalise superego of our immoral/criminal behaviour over-harsh superego: strict parenting, guilt, unconscious, self punishment maternal deprivation theory, bowlby, warm continuous bond leads to strong adult emotional relationships, failure leads to affectionless psychopathy, delinquency - unfalsifiable + support from bowlby 44 thieves, 14 ap, 12 separation from mother - methodological issues, bias - contradictory points, avoid punishment, same sex parents still lead to crime

Answer 7

aims of custodial sentencing: deterrence: putting people off committing crime incapacitation: protect the public by removing offenders retribution: revenge against the offender rehabilitation: reform the offenders psychological effects of custodial sentencing: stress and depression, suicide and self harm rates are higher in prison than in the general population, institutionalisation, inability to function outside of prison after adapting to prison life routines and norms, prisonisation, behaviours unacceptable outside prison are encouraged via socialisation into an ‘inmate code’ *recidivism: refers to reoffending, about 45% of uk offenders reoffend within a year - school for crime

Answer 8

behaviourist approach, possible to unlearn undesirable behaviour behaviour modification programmes reinforce obedient behaviour whilst punishing disobedience token economy: based on operant conditioning, desirable inmate behaviours e.g. avoiding confrontation, following rules, are rewarded with tokens, but they may also be removed as punishment tokens are secondary reinforcers, tokens are not rewarding in themselves but because they can be exchanged for something desirable (primary reinforcers), e.g. a phone call to a loved one, extra food or cigarettes operationalised: target behaviours are operationalised by breaking them down into component parts (e.g. interactions with other prisoners - not touching others, speaking politely), each ‘unit’ of behaviour should be objective and measurable and agreed by staff and prisoners in advance scoring system: staff and prisoners should be aware if how much each behaviour is worth in tokens, behaviours are hierarchical, some more demanding than others, tokens may be awarded directly or points may be awarded and converted to tokens reinforcements should outweigh punishments by a ratio of 4:1 (gendreau et al) prison staff receive full training, aiming to standardise procedures so all staff reward the same behaviours, keep record if what tokens awarded so progress can be assessed + easy to implement, doesn’t need specialists, cost-effective, can be widely applied - little rehabilitative value, once not in institutions behaviour returns to original, anger management understands causes making it longer lasting - ethical issues, manipulative and dehumanising (moya et al), withdrawal of ‘privileges’ is unethical + support from hobbs and holt,

Answer 9

universality: claim that observed behaviours apply to all humans, regardless of differences in gender, biology or culture, if a hypothesis isn’t tested on diverse sample, the assumption may not be generalisable bias: psychologists pre-existing beliefs and viewpoints influencing their theories and data interpretation, comes from personal experiences e.g. background, education gender bias: when stereotypical views about male and female behaviour affect researchers theoretical assumptions alpha bias: overemphasis or exaggeration of differences between males and females e.g. psychodynamic theory, freud assumed that girls identification with same-sex parent is weaker beta bias: ignoring or underestimating differences between men and women e.g. milgrams research, women were less likely to be obedient androcentrism: psychology tends to reflect male-centric view of the world, leading to female behaviour being misunderstood, due to most psychologists developing these theories being male - promotes sexism in the research - research challenging the bias may not be published

Answer 10

cultural bias: interpreting and judging human behaviour based on cultural norms and experiences ethnocentrism: a form of cultural bias, superiority of own culture from researchers that’s used as a standard for evaluating other cultures e.g. strange situation, seems secure is most desirable, however japanese babies more likely to be classed as insecurely attached cultural relativism: the principle that behaviour should be understood in the context of the culture where it occurs, taking into account that cultures norms, values and beliefs, helps avoid cultural bias aschs study assumed results applied universally, however other research found other cultures didn’t conform as much some findings argued to be universal but our culture biased, weird, henrich, most likely participants in a study, westernised, educated people from industrialised, rich, democracies, it’s important to use diverse samples to reduce bias

Answer 11

what influences our behaviours, most approaches are determist but disagree on the cause free will: able to make own choices, we can reject biological and environmental influences on our behaviour, e.g. humanistic approach hard determinism, all human actions have a cause, soft determinism, have a cause but people have freedom to make choices within a restricted range of options biological determinism environmental determinism psychic determinism science seeks causal explanations

Answer 12

looks at what behaviour is inherited or is based on experiences nature: nativists (e.g. descartes), human characteristics are innate, result of genes bowlby, innate baby behaviours, evolutionary, genetic, concordance for schizophrenia higher in identical twins nurture: empiricists (e.g. locke), mind is a blank slate at birth, shaped by interactions with the environment social learning theory, bandura, learn behaviour from environment, behaviourism, classical and operant conditioning measuring: concordance, the degree to which two people are similar to a participant interactionist approach: all characteristics are a combination of both, e.g. attachment, quality of parental love, bowlby and child’s temperament, kagan diathesis-stress model: behaviour caused by vulnerability and a trigger, e.g. schizophrenia epigenetics: change in genetic activity but not genetic code, lifestyle and events leave marks on our dna, switching genes on and off, lifelong influence + real world applications for both, nurture, challenging maladaptive thinking by using therapy, ocd, influenced by genes and environment - negative implications, natavists, determinist leading to implications for those of different cultures, genders, empiricists, changing behaviour through alternate environments, society may control and manipulate citizens, taking extreme positions, dangerous consequences so interactionist is preferred

Answer 13

holism, looks at multiple factors affecting behaviour reductionism, reduces behaviour down to one explanation

Answer 14

debate over which position is preferable for psychology, a detailed study of one individual or group to provide in-depth understanding or study of larger groups with the aim of discovering norms, universal principles or laws of behaviour idiographic: number of participants is small, often a single person or group, initially understand the individual, then may be generalised based on findings, generally use qualitative research, roger’s counselling, based on in depth study of his clients from when he was a therapist nomothetic: general principles of behaviour are developed and then applied in individual situations, such as therapy, generally use quantitative research, seek to count human behaviour, data analysed for its statistical significance, skinner’s research, studied animals to discover general laws of learning objective vs subjective: nomothetic seeks standardised methods of assessing people, ensures true replication across samples of behaviour and removes the contamination of bias, idiographic tends not to believe objectivity is possible in psychological research, instead is people’s individual experience or their unique context that is important (subjective) + both approaches work together, idiographic qualitative data compliments nomothetic approach by providing more detail, hm looked at individual first and then researched memory to create general laws - idiographic on its own is ineffective, no baseline for comparison, it’s also subjective, difficult to build general effective theories without any nomothetic research

Answer 15

ethical issues: arise because of conflict between the need for valid research findings and preserving the rights of participants, ethical guidelines, also relate to implications of research socially sensitive research (SSR): must be aware of consequences of the research for those being represented, may have consequences if not implications for the research procedures: consequences should be considered at all stages of the research process research question: phrasing of research question influences how findings are interpreted e.g. alternative relationships suggests homosexuality dealing with participants: informed consent, protection from harm, confidentiality, consideration of all these things how findings are used: have to be considered in advance, might give scientific credence to prejudices + potential benefits for groups studied with SSR, dsm removed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disorder after research came out suggesting its normal, illustrates importance - however, negative consequences, e.g. criminal gene research may provide an excuse for bad behaviour, need for careful consideration of possible outcomes and consequences

Answer 16

co-morbidity: two or more conditions occurring together, schizophrenia commonly diagnosed with depression, 50%, buckley et al, common with other mental illnesses ao3 - two conditions together challenges validity of classification of both illnesses, could be due to not being able to tell the difference, misdiagnosis symptom overlap: considerable overlap between the symptoms of schizophrenia and other conditions, bipolar - positive symptoms like delusions, negative symptoms like avolition ao3 - may not be two different conditions but instead just one, misdiagnosis gender bias: longnecker found that more men get diagnosed with schizophrenia than women, females typically function better ao3 - women are less likely to be diagnosed as they appear to be coping better culture bias: african americans are more likely to be diagnosed then white people, hearing voices is more acceptable due different cultures ao3 - may not actually be a symptom, psychiatrists are usually white so are less likely to understand other cultures and more likely to misdiagnose and discrimination

paper 3 Flashcards

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