Edexcel Criminal psychology

• Operant conditioning 


  The belief that we learn behaviour through rewards and punishments.
• Positive reinforcement 


  Gaining a positive stimulus to encourage the continuation of a behaviour
• Negative reinforcement


  Taking away a negative stimulus to encourage the continuation of a behaviour
• Positive punishment 


  Gaining a negative stimulus to encourage the end of a behaviour
• Negative punishment 


  Taking away a positive stimulus to encourage the end of a behaviour
• Primary reinforcer


  Something that satisfies basic human needs. Such as food, water and shelter
• Secondary reinforcer


  A stimulus associated with a primary reinforcer. Such as money
• Social learning theory (SLT)


  Theory saying that we learn by observing and imitating role models
• Role model


  Someone that you look up to, to show you how to behave
• Modelling 


  Imitating role models behaviour, part of the social learning theory
• Identification


  When you see yourself as similar to a role model in some aspect
• Observational learning 


  When you learn behaviour through watching others
• Vicarious reinforcement 


  We are more likely to imitate our role models if we see them get a reward for their behaviour
• Extraversion


  One extreme end of personality. Scoring highly insinuates that you are an extrovert, with a sociable and outgoing temperament
• Introversion 


  One extreme end of personality. Scoring highly insinuates that you are an introvert, with a quiet and reserved temperament
• Neuroticism


  The nervous disposition of a person
• Psychoticism


  A lack of empathy, poor impulse control, often exhibiting antisocial or aggressive behaviour
• Recidivism 


  The reoffending rate of convicted criminals
• Prison


  A form of punishment, where a criminal is sentenced to a facility, by a court, in which they are denied civil liberties
• Community sentencing 


  A form of punishment, where an offender is made to do jobs which benefit the community
• Restorative justice 


  A form of punishment, where an offender meets up with the victim of their crimes to discuss the impact of their crime
• Token economy


  A form of behaviour modification where prisoners are rewarded for good behaviour with a sort of currency, which can be often be used to buy things while in prison

  Based on the idea of operant conditioning
• Anger management


  A form of rehabilitation, for offenders who committed violent crimes to manage their anger, consists of three steps
• Anti-social behaviour 


  Behaviour that is unhelpful, destructive and aggressive
• Pro-social behaviour


  Behaviour which is kind, helpful, cooperative and peaceful
• Social learning theory 


  There are four stages to the SLT :

  Attention - To learn something new you must first pay attention to it

  Retention - To learn you must be able to store or retain the action/behaviour in your memory

  Reproduction - You must have the skills to be able to reproduce the action/behaviour

  Motivation - To model the action/behaviour, you need to be able to have a reason to do it, such as if you saw your role model get a reward for the behaviour (vicarious reinforcement)
• High psychoticism score


  The person is cold, lacks compassion and anti-social
• High extraversion score


  Nervous system has a low arousal level, meaning that they often seek thrills and excitement
• Low extraversion score


  Nervous system has a high arousal level, meaning that they often avoid thrills and excitement
• High neuroticism score


  The person is unstable, their nervous system responds quickly to stressful situations and over reacts quickly
• Low neuroticism score


  The person is stable, their nervous system is unreactive and calm under stress
• Criminal PEN score


  Criminals are said to score highly in psychoticism, extraversion and neuroticism
• Token economy


  The staff in prison makes a list of positive behaviours that they want to encourage

  Each time a prisoner shows these behaviours they are rewarded with a token (or another secondary reinforcer)

  Prisoners collect the tokens and exchange them something (often a primary reinforcer)

  An exchange system is set up, so the guards and prisoners know how many tokens are needed for each reward

  (This system uses operant conditioning)
• Anger management


  It involves working with a therapist in a 3 stage process:

  -Cognitive Preparation

  This is when the offender reflects on the triggers and reasons for their anger, and why it may be counterproductive

  -Skill acquisition

  This is when they learn skills to control anger, including relaxation techniques and assertiveness training (so they can make their points without resulting to anger)

  -Application practice

  This is when they role play a triggering situation so the offender can practice the skills they have learnt
• Aim of Bandura (1961)


  -Can aggression be learnt by imitating adult role models

  -Are children more likely to imitate aggression from a same sex role model
• Procedure of Bandura (1961)


  -72 children split evenly between 3 conditions (aggressive model, passive model, no model)

  -In the modelled group, the children would watch either a male or female exhibit a certain type of behaviour

  -After watching the role models, the children were taken into a room with lots of different toys, including a bobo doll, where their behaviour is observed
• Results of Bandura (1961)


  -The children in the aggressive condition displayed more aggressive behaviour than the two other conditions

  -Boys were more likely to imitate physical aggression with the same sex model , but girls were more likely to imitate verbal aggression

  -In the non aggressive condition, boys went more time with the toy gun and girls spent more time with the dolls and tea set
• Conclusions of Bandura (1961)


  -Children imitate aggression when modelled by a role model (learn through observation - SLT)

  -Children imitate same-sex role models
• Aim of Charlton (2000)


  To investigate whether television would cause children to become more aggressive