Cards (6)

  • Claims
    • physiological theory, Brain Abnormality Theory
    • damage to the prefrontal cortex can alter behaviour and impair impulse control
    • the damage causes people to become more aggressive and violent
  • Components
    • used a PET scanner to study the living brains of 41 criminals who pled not guilty by reason of insanity
    • all 41 had prefrontal cortex damage
    • killers who pled not guilty by reason of insanity had significantly different brain functions in a number of areas
  • Credibility
    • research can be easily repeated
    • scientific study with objective, qualitative data
    • deterministic
    • reductionist
    • doesn't establish when the damage occured
  • Application
    • Donta Page: robbed, raped and killed a young woman, was thrown out of a car window
    • Phineas Gage: changes in personality following a large iron rod piercing his skull and brain
  • Refuting Evidence
    • not representative of all crimes
    • doesn't explain the abnormality
    • PET scans weren't very clear
    • can be generalised
  • Supporting Evidence
    • Raine and Scerbo: Neurochemical theory
    • Bandura: Social Learning Theory
    • Bufkin and Luttrel 2005: meta-analysis of 17 similar studies and found that they all came to the same conclusion