Superego

Question 1

Gender Bias

Answer 1

A limitation of Freud’s explanation of offender behaviour is that it is gender biased. Freud’s explanation of events during the phallic stage proposed that women should
develop a weaker superego than men because they do not identify as strongly with their same-sex parent as boys do. This is because resolution of the Electra complex is less satisfactory and because they are also under less pressure to identify with their mothers
because of their lower status. The implication of this is that females should be prone to more criminal behaviour than males (as they have a weak superego). However, statistics of the male-female ratios on inmates in prison and research evidence does not support this view. Hoffman (1975) found hardly any evidence of gender differences, and when there was, girls tended to be more moral than boys. Such views therefore represent alpha bias, exaggerating the difference between men and women and devaluing women.

Question 2

Psychology as a Science

Answer 2

– A criticism of Psychodynamic explanations is that they suffer from
a lack of falsifiability. There is the difficulty associated with testing some of the concepts such as a deviant superego, whose existence is difficult, if not impossible to prove. This means that applications to crime cannot be tested empirically and can only be judged at face value. Since they are incapable of being proved wrong, they are therefore deemed as unscientific. For this reason, psychodynamic explanations are regarded as pseudoscientific and may therefore contribute little to our understanding of crime, or how to prevent it.