Psychological Explanations - Psychodynamic

Question 1

What are psychodynamic explanations?

Answer 1

-a perspective that describes the different forces
-most of which are unconscious, that operate on the mind and direct human behaviour and experience

Question 2

What did Blackburn argue?

Answer 2

-if the superego is deficient then offending is inevitable
-as the Id is given free rein

Question 3

What are the 3 types inadequate superego?

Answer 3

1. the weak
2. the deviant
3. the over harsh

Question 4

What is the weak superego?

Answer 4

-if the same gender parent is absent during phallic stage
-a child cannot internalise a fully formed super ego
-no opportunity for identification
-make OB more likely

Question 5

What is the deviant superego?

Answer 5

-if the superego that a child internalises has immoral values
-this would lead to OB

Question 6

What are healthy parenting styles?

Answer 6

-healthy superego = based on identification with a parent who has firm rules but forgives transgressions

Question 7

What can overly harsh parenting styles lead to?

Answer 7

-over harsh superego
-crippled by guilt and anxiety
-may unconsciously drive the individual to perform criminal acts in order to satisfy the superegos overwhelming need for punishment

Question 8

What is the role of emotion?

Answer 8

-the effect of an inadequate superego is to allow emotional demands to become uppermost in guiding moral behaviour
-this approach acknowledges the role of anxiety in the development of OB

Question 9

What is affectionless psychopathy?

Answer 9

-characterised by a lack of guilt and empathy
-engage in acts of delinquency
-cannot develop relationships with others

Question 10

What did Bowlby find?

Answer 10

-interviews with thieves and families
-14 of the sample showed behavioural characteristics that could be classed as affectionless
-12 of these had experienced prolonged separation from mothers in infancy
-the effect of maternal deprivation had caused affectionless and delinquent behaviour among thieves

Question 11

What is the strength of the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 11

-research support for the link between offending and the superego
-Goreta conducted a Freudian-style analysis of 10 offenders referred for psychiatric treatment
-disturbances in superego formation were diagnosed in all
-each offender felt the need for self punishment
-Goreta explained this as a consequence of an over-harsh superego
-supports the role of psychic conflits

Question 12

What is one weakness of the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 12

-gender bias
-assumption that girls develop a weaker superego than boys because identification with he same gender parent isn’t as strong
-girls are under less pressure to identify with their mothers
-implication of this is that women should be more prone to offending behaviour than men
-rates of imprisonment show the opposite to be true
-Hoffman found hardly any evidence of gender differences - and if there was girls were more moral than boys
-suggests there is alpha bias at the heart of this theory
-not be appropriate as an explanation of OB

Question 13

What is a limitation of the psychodynamic approach? - maternal deprivation

Answer 13

-only based on an association between maternal deprivation and offending
-Lewis analysed data drawn from interviews with 500 young people
-found that maternal deprivation is a poor predictor of future offending
-even if there is a link between children who have experienced prolonged separation - it isn’t necessarily a casual relationship
-suggests that maternal deprivation may be one of the reasons for later offending but not the only reason