Psychological Explanations for Offending Behaviour Flashcards
(21 cards)
What is Eysenck’s theory of the criminal personality?
Extraversion + Neuroticism + Psychoticism = The criminal personality.
Why are extraverts more likely to be criminals?
They have an underactive nervous system, constantly seek excitement, stimulation and are likely to engage in risk-taking behaviour.
Impulsive and don’t condition easily.
Do not learn from their mistakes.
Why are neurotic individuals more likely to engage in criminal behaviour?
Tend to be nervous, jumpy and restless. Their general instability means behaviour is often difficult to predict.
Why are psychotic individuals more likely to commit criminal behaviour?
Characterised as cold, unemotional, uncaring and prone to aggression. Linked to criminal behaviour due to lack of regard for the feelings of others.
According to Eysenick, how is personality linked to criminal behaviour?
Through socialisation processes (environment), children are taught by parents to delay gratification and be more socially oriented. Extroverts amd neurotic individuals make them difficult to condition and do not respond to antisocial impulses, more likely to act antisocially.
How is the Criminal Personality assessed?
Using the EPI (Eysenck Personality Inventory)
How was the EPI created?
Assessed 2070 prisoners in 1977 using the EPI, prisoners scored higher on E, N and P than the control group.
Self-report.
Discuss the limitation of the difficulty to establish cause and effect of Eysenck’s Criminal Personality Theory.
Could be a bi-directional model, offending behaviour could lead to higher extraversion, psychoticism and neuroticism rather than these being a cause.
Discuss the strength of Eysenck’s theory poses as a diathesis-stress model.
innate basis with extraversion biologically determined by arousal in the nervous system. Socialisation was important in explaining criminal behaviour in terms of environmental triggers.
Potential real world application to monitor the upbringing of children who may have the potential to become offenders due to early personality indicators.
Discuss the limitation of the EPI due to it being self-report.
May not provide an accurate picture of personality, individuals may lie to appear more socially desirable. Lack validity.
Included a lie scale which may counter the issue, data discarded when high lie score.
What are the cognitive explanations for explaining offending behaviour?
Levels of Moral Reasoning and Cognitive Distortions.
Why were levels of moral reasoning an explanation for offending?
Kohlberg - Offenders have a less developed level of moral reasoning, are stuck as ‘pre-conventional level’.
Non-offenders develop a ‘conventional’ level or ‘post-conventional’ level.
What is the pre conventional level of moral reasoning?
Offenders are egocentric, thinking about themselves and their needs before others.
They will break the law if the rewards outweigh the costs or if punishment can be avoided.
Why is cognitive distortions an explanation for offending?
They are errors or biases in people’s thinking which can affect the way criminals interpret other’s behaviour and justify their own actions.
What is the Hostile Attribution Bias?
Offenders may assume others are being confrontational or threatening when they are not.
Misinterpretation may result in a violent response.
What is Minimalisation?
Offenders may attempt to deny or downplay the seriousness of their offence e.g. burglars may say that they are simply supporting my family.
Barbaree - 54% of a sample of rapists denied they had committed an offence at all.
Discuss the research support for the level of moral reasoning.
Kohlberg - using several moral dilemmas, a group of violent youths were significantly lower in their moral development than non-violent youths.
Discuss a strength of cognitive explanations in real world explanation.
Anger management programmes can help tackle cognitive distortions and reduce offending. Encouraged to understand that their thought processes are irrational or faulty.
Offender may have a hostile attribution bias.
Therapists redefine the situation as non-threatening and thus reduce subsequent offending behaviour.
Discuss the limitation of cognitive explanations as don’t fully explain the root cause.
May be biological reasons for cognitive distortions such as abnormalities im the frontal lobe.
Psychodynamic approach may provide an explanation.
