psychological theories Flashcards
Moral reasoning theory
how people justify their behavior with respect of social issues. How people think about right and wrong. In their developments, humans need to develop empathy, and this will affect their decisions about wether or not a crime is justified.
Social information processing theory
how information in social situations is processed. It explains why some individuals commit criminal behavior looking at the way people think, cognitive distortions and the psychology behind it
the 4 types of cognitive distortions
- Blaming others: it’s a cognitive distortion, example of the nazi soldiers who don’t think they committed a crime because they were told what to do
- Hostile attribution bias: if your friend is late for a dinner you think they’re the worse person ever but if you are late you blame the action on social factors, it’s never your fault.
- Minimizing consequences
- Egocentric bias: emphasis on me than it actually is (example of the pimple in soc)
4 main psychological theories relating to victimology
- Victim precipitation theory
- Lifestyle theory
- Deviant place theory
- Routine activity theory
Victim precipitation theory
between 25-30% of victims who have been sexually assaulted, have been sexually assaulted in the past. This theory affirms that the victim has some interrelationship with the criminal
Lifestyle theory
people might become victims of crime because of their lifestyle and choices.
Deviant place theory
more likely to be a victim of crime in dangerous areas. This theory is less on the individuals and more on where they are located.
Routine activity theory
for crime to occur there needs to be three elements: a likely offender, the absence of a capable guardian and a suitable target.
who is Finklehor
he gave characteristics of children who are more likely to suffer child abuse. A high percentage of children who suffered child abuse has one of these characteristics:
having a stepdad
Lack of bio mom
Low income
Mess than 2 friends
Uneducated mom
Sex-punitive mom
Lack pf physical attention
Not close to mom
Risk factors for being a victim of crime
under 25
Global majority (not white)
Low socio-economic groups
Male
the 4 Developmental and psychological theories of offending
- Moffitt’s adolescent Limited/Life Course
- Lahey and Waldman, Developmental Propensity
- Thornberry and krohn, Interactional theory
- Samson and Laub, Age grade theory and informal social control
Moffitt’s adolescent Limited/Life Course
There are two qualitatively different types of offenders: life course persistent (LPC), they are going to offend throughout their whole life, and adolescence limited (AL), offenders are only offenders in adolescence.
For adolescent limited offenders, the main influencing factors are their lack of maturity and their friends. Moffitt thought that group can stop offending because they have less of a neurological problem: people who offend throughout their whole lives are more likely to have mental deficits.
She argues that there are no true adult offenders, she suggests that adults are likely to offend but they don’t get caught. Two psychologists tried to dispute the theory, and they affirmed that only 1/3 of adults caught breaking the law, offended when they were younger.
Her theory is a combination of things that happen to you plus your personality. Moffitt does not make a construct.
Lahey and Waldman, Developmental Propensity
Their study is the developmental trends study. They made a construct: they constructed the anti social propensity: they say that what matters is how much anti social propensity you have. They dont look at life events and dont try to explain why people stop committing crimes, for them what matters is how much anti social propensity an individual has.
There are 4 domains: the most important one is low cognitive ability. Then, there are 3 dispositional dimensions (character traits) and they are pro sociality (tendency to think about other people, their concern for others), daring (brave, adventurous, risk taking) and negative emotionality (being upset, especially upset by losses).
Thornberry and krohn, Interactional theory
They have made a construct. Their most important study is Rochester youth developmental study. They say that the causes of a child developing criminal behavior/committing crimes vary. The external theories that interact with the child are very important in order to commit crimes.
From birth to 6, the most important issue is any neuropsychiatric defects that the baby might have, and parenting deficiency. They talk a lot about reciprocal causation. The next stage that they look at is from 6-12, where the environment and neighborhood they are in are the most important social factors. Finally, from 11-18 what’s most significant is friends and peers.
They also look at inter generational transmission: the genetics.
Triple P: providing support for how people parent.
Samson and Laub, Age grade theory and informal social control
The study most of their research started off form is the Glueck and Glueck 1950 follow up study of male delinquents and non delinquents.
They look at why young people don’t commit crime. They look at the strength of the bonds with family, peers, the importance of labeling and emphasizing that things change over time.
They say that you should’t screen for risk factors in children because people have potentiality to change so much. This is a theoretical construct as well, because bonds are a construct.
