Unit 2 - Criminological theories - 2.2 Describe individualistic theories of criminality

Question 1

Psychodynamic theories - Psychoanalysis

According to Sigmund Freud, what determines our personality and future behaviour?

Answer 1

Our childhood

Question 2

What three elements make up the human personality?

Answer 2

The Id, The ego and The super ego

Question 3

What is the Id?

Answer 3

Located in the unconscious, instinctive, ‘animal’ part of the mind. It contains powerful, selfish, pleasure-seeking needs and drives such as food, sex and sleep. The Id is governed by the ‘pleasure principle’ - the blind desire to satisfy urges at any cost. If we acted on these urges whenever we felt them it would lead to anti-social or criminal behaviour

Question 4

What is the Ego?

Answer 4

Freud saw our behaviour as the result of the struggle between the Id and the Superego. The ego’s role is to strike a balance between their conflicting demands. The ego is driven by the ‘reality principle’ - it learns from our experiences in the real world, actions have consequences. The ego seeks to control the Ids urges while still finding ways to satisfy them

Question 5

What is the Superego?

Answer 5

Contains our conscience or moral rules, which we learn through interactions with our parents. Through socialisation, the child learns its parents idea of right and wrong and the superego develops as a sort of ‘nagging parent’. If we act in contrary to the superego it punishes us with feelings of guilt and anxiety

Question 6

According to psychoanalytic theories, what causes anti-social behaviour?

Answer 6

Abnormal relationship with parents eg neglect or excessively strict parenting

Question 7

What can these abnormal relationships cause for children’s superegos?

Answer 7

They can get a weak, over-harsh or deviant superego

Question 8

What is a weakly developed superego?

Answer 8

The individual will feel less guilt about an anti-social action and less inhibition about acting on Id’s urges

Question 9

What is a too harsh and unforgiving superego?

Answer 9

Creates deep-seated guilt in the individuals, who then craves punishment as a release for these feelings. The person may engage in repeat offending in order to be punished

Question 10

What is a deviant superego?

Answer 10

A child is successfully socialised but into a deviant moral code. A son may have a perfectly good relationship with his criminal father and so he internalises his father’s criminal values. As a result, his superego would not inflict guilt feelings on him for contemplating criminal acts

Question 11

Psychodynamic theories - Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory

According to Bowlby, what causes deviant or anti-social behaviour?

Answer 11

Maternal deprivation. In his eyes a child needs a close relationship with its primary carer from birth to the age of 5 in order to develop normally

Question 12

What can happen to a child if they do not form the correct attachment at an early age?

Answer 12

The child will not be able to form meaningful emotional relationships with others. This is known as ‘affectionless psychopathy’. In some cases this can lead to criminal behaviour.

Question 13

Briefly outline the evidence that supports Bowlby’s theory

Answer 13

Study of 44 juvenile thieves who had been referred to a child guidance clinic. 39% of the thieves had suffered from maternal deprivation before the age of 5, compared to 5% of control group of non-delinquents

Question 14

Psychological theories - Eysenck’s personality theory

According to Eysenck, what is criminality the result of?

Answer 14

For Eysenck criminality is a result of a particular personality type

Question 15

What two dimensions is our personality made up of?

Answer 15

Extraversion versus introversion (E)

Neuroticism versus emotional stability (N)

Question 16

What are the 3 dimensions of personality identified by Eysenck?

Answer 16

Extraverted, Introverted and Neurotic

Question 17

Outline Extraverted

Answer 17

Outgoing, sociable, impulsive, carefree, optimistic, aggressive, short tempered and unreliable

Question 18

Outline Introverted

Answer 18

Reserved, inward looking, thoughtful, serious, quiet, self-controlled, reliable and permissive

Question 19

Outline Neurotic

Answer 19

Anxious, moody, depressed, prone to overreacting

Question 20

Describe the Eysenck personality questionnaire

Answer 20

Eysenck devised a questionnaire to measure people’s personality traits, ranking them on a E scale and N scale. For example, people with a high E score are very extroverted and people with a low E score are very introverted. Eysenck found that most people have personalities around the middle on both scales. However, criminals score high on both E scale and N scale. In other words, criminals tend to be strongly extraverted and neurotic

Question 21

What is meant by conditioning?

Answer 21

Some psychologists argue that through experience we learn to seek pleasure and aim to avoid pain. For example, if we misbehave we are punished and so we learn to stop doing it as to avoid further punishment. This process is called ‘conditioning’. Eysenck argues that we learn through conditioning, but some individuals inherit a nervous system that causes them to develop a criminal personality

Question 22

Briefly explain Eysenck’s argument that genetic inheritance can cause a criminal personality in the case of Extraverts

Answer 22

Have a nervous system that needs high levels of stimulation from their environment so they are constantly seeking excitement. This leads to impulsive, rule-breaking behaviour. In turn, this is likely to lead to punishment.

Question 23

Briefly explain Eysenck’s argument that genetic inheritance can cause a criminal personality in the case of Neurotics

Answer 23

Harder to condition into following society’s rules because their high anxiety levels prevent them from learning from punishment for their mistakes

Question 24

Briefly describe the additional personality dimension of psychoticism

Answer 24

In his later research, Eysenck added psychoticism (P) as a further personality dimension. People with a high P score are more likely to engage in criminality. They tend to be solitary misfits who are cruel, insensitive, aggressive and lacking in empathy. High P can overlap with serious psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia

Question 25

Learning theories Describe 3 key features of learning theories

Answer 25

- Criminal behaviour is learned behaviour - We learn this behaviour from family and peer groups (social environment) - The key role of reinforcement and punishment in the learning process

Question 26

Learning theories - Sutherland's differential association theory According to Sutherland, where do individuals learn criminal behaviour?

Answer 26

Family and peer groups (including working groups)

Question 27

What are the two factors that can result in criminal behaviour according to Sutherland?

Answer 27

Imitation and Learned attitudes

Question 28

Briefly describe Imitation

Answer 28

Individuals can acquire criminal skills and techniques through observing those around them

Question 29

Briefly describe Learned attitudes

Answer 29

Individuals are exposed to attitudes about the law from family and friends. Some of these may be favourable to the law and others unfavourable. If the individual internalises more unfavourable than favourable attitudes, they are more likely to become a criminal

Question 30

Use the example of white collar crime to illustrate Sutherland's idea of learned attitudes

Answer 30

Sutherland found that In studies in workplaces many normalised criminal behaviour (by claiming 'everyone is doing it'). This made it easier for individual members to justify their own criminal behaviour

Question 31

Learning theories - Operant learning theory What is the basic idea of operant learning theory?

Answer 31

Work of B.F Skinner. Its basic idea is that if a particular behaviour is rewarded, it is likely to be repeated. However, behaviour that has an undesirable outcome will not be repeated

Question 32

What Is meant by 'behaviourism'?

Answer 32

The cause of someone's behaviour lies in the reinforcements (rewards) and punishments that shape it

Question 33

Briefly describe how differential reinforcement theory explains criminal behaviour

Answer 33

All behaviour is the result of reinforcements and punishments, if so then this must explain most criminal behaviour. An example of this is Jeffrey's differential reinforcement theory. Jeffrey argues that criminal behaviour is learned through the reinforcements of particular behaviours. If crime has more rewarding consequences than punishing ones, they will be more likely to engage in criminal activity. These rewards could be financial but also emotional eg respect of peers. If we want to explain someone's offending we need to look at the balance of rewards and punishments for the individual

Question 34

Operant conditioning Explain Thorndike's 'law of effect'

Answer 34

Any behaviour that is followed by favourable consequences is likely to happen again but any behaviour that is followed by unfavourable consequences is not likely to happen again

Question 35

In Skinner's experiments, what was he trying to discover?

Answer 35

Proving how rewards and punishments affect our behaviour

Question 36

What was the goal of the Skinner Box experiment (operant chamber)?

Answer 36

Teach the mice to touch the lever

Question 37

What did Skinner call rewards?

Answer 37

Reinforcements

Question 38

How did skinnier reinforce the behaviour of the mouse?

Answer 38

He would give it food every time it touched the lever

Question 39

What happened to the behaviour of the mouse as a result of the reinforcement?

Answer 39

The mouse would continue to press the lever

Question 40

What did Skinner do to the mouse in the Skinner box to demonstrate negative reinforcement?

Answer 40

He would electrocute the mouse if it didn't touch the lever

Question 41

Describe the example of negative reinforcement in our own life

Answer 41

Being nagged by our mums to clean our rooms. 'Nagging' stops once you clean your room

Question 42

Describe how Skinner demonstrated punishment in the Skinner box

Answer 42

Skinner would electrocute the mouse if it touched the lever.

Question 43

Explain how Skinner's work on operant conditioning might help us to understand why some people commit crime

Answer 43

Individuals may be rewarded for criminal behaviour and so may continue to commit these offences or they may not receive negative reinforcement for these crimes

Question 44

Learning theories - Social learning theory According to Bandura, how do we learn much of our behaviour?

Answer 44

Through imitating others. For this reason, his approach is known as the observational or social learning theory

Question 45

What did Bandura mean by 'models'?

Answer 45

Other people by which we model our behaviour on. We are more likely to imitate models if they are of a high status

Question 46

How do consequences affect our behaviour?

Answer 46

Whether we imitate their behaviour depends on the consequences of the certain behaviour. If we see the 'model' being rewarded for their behaviour we are more likely to imitate it than if we see them being punished for it

Question 47

Briefly describe the three groups used in the Bobo doll experiment

Answer 47

Group 1 - Saw a version of the film where the model was being rewarded for beating the doll up with praise Group 2 - Saw a version in which the model was being punished Group 3 (control group) - In this version, the model's behaviour was neither rewarded or punished

Question 48

Briefly describe the responses of each of the groups in the experiment

Answer 48

Group 1 - Imitated the aggressive behaviour they had seen been rewarded Group 2 - Least likely to imitate the behaviour as they had seen the model be punished for their behaviour Group 3 - Imitated the aggressor but less so than Group 1

Question 49

Briefly outline what the Bobo doll experiment shows about criminal behaviour

Answer 49

If an individual sees a model being rewarded for criminality, the theory predicts that the behaviour is more likely to be imitated

Question 50

What was Bandura curious to learn with this experiment?

Answer 50

How we learn, whether or not we learn through others actions

Question 51

What is a Bobo doll?

Answer 51

An inflatable doll that can be knocked down and pops up again

Question 52

Briefly explain what Bandura did in his experiments

Answer 52

He would film adults beating up the Bobo doll with hammers and punches and show it to children and then record what the children did to the Bobo doll

Question 53

What was Bandura trying to find out about the children?

Answer 53

How they would behave after watching the film

Question 54

What did the children in the experiment do to the Bobo doll?

Answer 54

Beat It up and imitate the actions from the model from the film

Question 55

What did the children's behaviour show?

Answer 55

Children could learn from what other people would do

Question 56

Describe the criticism received about the experiment

Answer 56

People said that if the children did not know about Bobo dolls before the experiment they would not know how else to act with it, apart from what was shown in the video

Question 57

How did Bandura change his experiment after the criticism?

Answer 57

He would have children watch the film and then he would put them in a room with other children and see how they acted

Question 58

How did the children who had watched the Bobo doll behave, compared to the children who had not?

Answer 58

They acted more violently

Question 59

What does this prove?

Answer 59

By watching violence it does translate into becoming more violent in other aspects of life

Question 60

What is "modelling"?

Answer 60

We watch other people do certain behaviour, they then act as a model for our own behaviour

Question 61

What are role models?

Answer 61

Parents or older siblings of whom we 'mode' our behaviour off

Question 62

Why is modelling so important?

Answer 62

We look at other people and we learn to behave and act eg eating cake or putting 20p into the lollipop machine

Question 63

Cognitive theories of crime What is meant by 'cognition'?

Answer 63

Thinking and other mental processes like attitudes, beliefs, problem solving, decision making and how we interpret the world

Question 64

What do cognitive theories of crime argue?

Answer 64

These mental processes shape our behaviour

Question 65

Cognitive theories of crime - Criminal personality theory What is the key idea of Yochelson and Samenov?

Answer 65

They proposed criminals have faulty thinking, making them more likely to commit crime based on a long term study of 240 male offenders most of whom lived in psychiatric hospital

Question 66

What did Yochelson and Samenow base their theory off of?

Answer 66

It was based on a long term study of 240 male offenders most of whom lived in psychiatric hospital

Question 67

Briefly explain what is meant by 'thinking errors'

Answer 67

Criminals show errors in their thinking and decision making leading them to commit crime such as lying, secretiveness, need for power and control, lack of trust, uniqueness and victim stance

Question 68

What are the top ten criminal thinking errors?

Answer 68

Closed channel thinking, Victimstance, views self as a good person, lack of effort, lack of interest in responsible performance, lack of perspective, fear of fear, power thrust, uniqueness and ownership attitude

Question 69

Cognitive theories of crime - Kohlberg's moral development theory Briefly outline Kohlberg's view of how our ideas of right and wrong develop

Answer 69

Kohlberg argued that ideas of right and wrong develop through stages from childhood to adulthood. In Childhood these ideas are pre-conventional and based off punishment and reward but in adulthood they are based on moral principles and values

Question 70

What does this theory suggest about criminals moral development?

Answer 70

Criminals have a less developed set of morals. They are stuck in a child like state based on punishment and reward rather than how their actions affect others, making them more likely to reoffend