Raine et al - AO3

• Why is the use of matched pairs a positive?

  > Control group were matched with the NGRIs on variables such as age,sex, condition and were all medication free for two weeks prior

  > Increases internal validity and allows Raine to make conclusions about the cause of violent behaviour
• Why are the direction of effects questionable?

  > The differences found could be a result of the murder committed and consequences, rather than a cause

  > Raine's data is only correlational, it is possible that any differences could have resulted from environmental factors
• Why is this study being a standardized procedure a strength?

  > All participants had to do the same continuous performance task for 32 minutes before PET scan

  > Can be replicated with 82 participants, increases reliability
• Why does the study have low generalisability?

  > Although there is a large sample size of 82 but it only consists of NGRIs, can't be generalized to non-NGRIs murderers

  > The findings about brain functioning cannot be true of all murderers, lowers generalizability
• How can this study be applied to society?

  > Raine was called to testify cases by examining frontal lobes were misshapen in the same way as the 41 murderers

  > Has useful applications for defendants claiming diminished responsibility by using evidences from Raine's brain scans to support NGRI claims
• How is this study socially sensitive?

  > Findings lead to screening of children early in their lives to detect things like less activity in corpus callosum compared to others

  > This research is socially sensitive, could lead to negative implications for a child who has brain differences