Psychological explanations

• Psychological explanation -

  Eysenck’s personality theory -

  • 2000 male prisoners + control of 2500 male students — tested with a questionnaire for PEN = criminals were higher
  • Proposed 3 dimensions that represent behaviours
  • Believed criminal personality was PEN = Psychoticism, Neuroticism, Extraversion
  • P= aggressive — violent crimes
  • E= seeking danger — theft
  • N= overreacting + unpredictable — self-defence
• Psychological explanation -

  Eysenck — Biological basis

  • personality traits come from an inherited nervous system
  • P= high testosterone — aggressive crimes
  • E= under-active nervous system — seeks stimulation
  • N= overreacting-active nervous system — on edge (fight or flight) and impulsive
• Psychological explanation -

  Eysenck - Socialisation + delayed gratification

  • only effects Extraversion
  • E= difficult to socialise due to their nervous system
  • they’re selfish = hard to teach delayed gratification
  • causes violent crimes + theft = instant gratification
• Psychological explanation -

  Eysenck - Evaluations -

  S- Validity — replicable - questionnaire used

  S- Interactionalist — looking at biological + sociological levels

  W- Gender bias — only uses men

  W- Questionnaire = subjective + social desirability

  W- Temporal validity - from the 1940s

  W- Oversimplified - Digman — found 5 types of personality to be linked to criminals

  W- Culturally relative - Bartol + Holonchock = Hispanic + African American offenders - less extroverted than control
• psychological explanation-

  Cognitive criminality - Level of moral reasoning

  • proposed by Kohlberg — behaviours and understandings seen through levels
  • 3 levels with 6 stages
  • Criminality seen in level 1 stage 2 = Hedonistic Orientation — doing whats right for personal gain (alike a child)
  • Level 1 (criminality) - punishment and obedience orientated = pre-conventional morality
• Psychological explanation -

  Cognitive criminality - Levels of moral reasoning

  W- simplistic - may be rating in the other levels and committing crime

  W- self-report - demand characteristics + please/screw you effect

  W- artificial stimulus - lacks ecological-validity

  W- beta bias - only men used

  S- Palmer + Hollin - 300 non-offenders + 130 offenders — used 11 moral-dilemmas = leSS-mature options were taken by offenders
• Psychological explanation -

  Cognitive explanation - cognitive distortions

  • Offenders may have biased/dysfunctional thinking about their offence
  • Leading them to legitimise their offence + keep a positive self-image
  • Hostile attribution bias = misinterpretation of social cues/aggression (mainly in unclear situations)
  • Minimisation = justification of personal offending by minimising consequences
• Psychological explanations -

  Cognitive explanation - Evaluations

  S- Distortions minimisation - Barbaree = 25 rapists, 54% denied committing, 40% minimised harm caused

  S- application to therapy - CBT can be used to alter thoughts + make functional. Practical solution

  W- correlational not causation - cant see the cause of delusions

  W- no falsification - based on inference

  W- only descriptive model
• Psychological explanation -

  Differential association -

  • Sutherland - ‘everyones associations are different‘ (SLT)
  • Offending is learnt through socialisation + association
  • Learning pro-criminal attitudes — impact of role models (parents, co-workers, friends)
  • positive reinforcement = vicarious reinforcement, rewards, meeting others expectations
  • People exposed to pro-crime > anti-crime = offending — prediction based on: frequency, intensity, duration
• Psychological explanation -

  Differential association - evaluations -

  S- explains re-offenders = surrounded by pro-criminal attitudes = learning further crime + positivity

  S- can be caught early + counteracted = practical solution

  S- applies to all crime - all learnt through association

  W- subjective - lacks validity as cant be tested

  W- correlational not causation - can be effected by socio-economic variables

  W- environmentally reductionist - ignored genetics

  W- environmentally deterministic - ignores free-will
• Psychological explanation -

  Psychodynamic approach -

  • Surrounding the superego - morality principle, developed at 5yrs in the Phallic stage, internalised morals from same sex parent
  • Inadequate superego = crime
  • Blackburn’s inadequate superegos
  • weak superego - unable to control ID — from an absent same sex parent
  • deviant superego - deviant internalised morals — deviant same sex parent
  • harsh superego - strict same sex parent — unconscious guilt driven from punishment
  • DEFENCE MECHANISMS = egos protection from ID/SE conflict
  • Displacement, Sublimation (diluted), Rationalisation
• Psychological explanation -

  Psychodynamic approach - evaluations

  S- Goreta - Freudian style analysis of 10 offenders — found SE disturbance was linked to their crimes (harsh SE)

  W- unfalsifiable - can‘t get evidence for a weak SE + unscientific methods

  W- better explanations - genetic, differential-association

  W- Lewis - interviewed 500 young people + found maternal deprivation didn’t predict offending = complex causation with other factors