Psychodynamic explanations

• What is the inadequate superego?

  • The superego works on the morality principle and punishes the ego through guilt for wrongdoing and rewards it with pride and satisfaction for good moral behaviour
  • Blackburn (1993) argued criminals have deficient or weak superegos as they give the id free rein to do whatever satisfies it
  • Can be weak, deviant, or harsh/overdeveloped
• What is the weak superego?

  • The superego develops as a result of identification with the same sex parent and internalising their moral values - when there is an absent same-sex parent during the phallic stage the superego will not develop properly as there is no opportunity for identification
  • This leads to poor control over antisocial behaviour and acting in ways that gratified the id's impulses
• What is the deviant superego?

  • When a child internalises a superego with immoral or deviant values as their parents which is likely to lead to offending behaviour
  • For example a boy raised by a criminal father is less likely to associate guilt with wrongdoing
• What is the harsh/overdeveloped superego?

  • Internalisation of an overly strict or harsh parent - the superego becomes overly harsh and cripples the ego with anxiety and guilt
  • Leaves individuals committing crime wishing to be caught as the punishment would reduce their guilt
  • Or may use defence mechanisms to repress their anxiety, causing an overabundance of unresolved conflicts that ends up being expressed in extreme criminal behaviour
• What is the theory of maternal deprivation in relation to offending behaviour?

  • Bowlby's argument that the ability to form meaningful relationships in adulthood is dependent on the child forming a warm, continuous relationship with a mother figure - failure to establish this during the first few years of life means the child is likely to experience damaging and irreversible consequences
  • Maternally deprived individuals are likely to engage in acts of delinquency and disrupts their ability to relate to others
  • Results in affectionless psychopathy - lack of normal affection, shame, empathy, etc.
• What was Bowlby's 44 thieves study?

  • In 1944 Bowlby investigated 44 juvenile thieves through interviews w/ them and their families, finding that 14 showed characteristics of affectionless psychopathy and 12/14 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers during the first 2 years of their lives
  • Concluded that the effects of maternal deprivation had caused affectionless and delinquent behaviour among the juvenile thieves
• What is one strength of the psychodynamic explanation for offending?

  • Research support for harsh/overdeveloped superego: Goreta (1991) conducted a Freudian-style analysis of 10 offenders referred for psychiatric treatment and found disturbances in their superego formations
  • Each experiences unconscious feelings of guilt and the need for self-punishment which manifested itself as a desire to commit acts of wrongdoing and offend, supporting the role of psychic conflicts as a basis for offending
• What is another strength of the psychodynamic explanation for offending?

  • Research support for harsh/developed superego: Megargee (1966) reported a series of violent acts carried out by people perceived as passive/harmless, like an 11 year old boy who stabbed his brother 34 times despite being described as polite with no previous history of aggressive tendencies
  • Represents a subgroup of violent offenders who are unable to express their anger in normal ways and eventually 'explode' and release their anger in one go
  • Supports use of defence mechanisms in people with harsh/overdeveloped superegos
• What is one limitation of the psychodynamic explanation for offending?

  • Gender bias: inadequate Superego theory states that girls develop weaker superegos because they don't identify with their mothers as strongly as boys do, as they don't experience intense castration anxiety
  • Therefore they are under less pressure to identify with their mothers which implies women should be more prone to offending, but evidence suggests otherwise as in the UK only 1/5 of all crimes are committed by women and 20x more men are in prison than women
  • Suggests Freud's theory has alpha bias and may not be an appropriately generalisable theory
• What is another limitation of the psychodynamic explanation for offending?

  • Reductionist: Bowlby's theory was only based on an association between maternal deprivation and offending
  • Lewis (1954) analysed data from interviews with 500 young people and found that maternal deprivation was a poor predictor of future offending and the ability to form close relationships in adulthood
  • Prolonged separation and offending is not necessarily a causal relationship as there are other reasons for this link such as growing up in poverty
  • Suggests the theory isn't the sole basis for offending