Week 9: Development of Offending

• Theories of crime categorized by level of examination


  • The individual: characteristics of individual criminals (genes, trauma, deviant worldview)
  • Group and socialisation theories: peer and family influences
  • Community influence: opportunities for progress or crime
  • Societal/macro-level theories: society structured in a way that creates crime
  • All of the above are useful
• Social Learning


  Modelling: imitation of behaviour
• Social learning theory


  1. People learn about consequences of behaviour

  2. They can learn about consequences from observing others (vicarious/observational learning, modelling)

  3. They can also learn directly from family and friends
• Bandura, Ross, & Ross (1963) study


  • Young participants observed "models" acting aggressively towards a Bobo doll, except in control condition
  • Those who observed aggression were more aggressive when provoked, compared to control participants
• Reinforcers


  Consequences that increase chances of a behaviour
• Potential reinforcers


  • Social approval (smiles, hugs, kisses, compliments)
  • Money
  • Sex
  • Social inclusion
• Social learning theory is important and useful because it explains process of learning complex behaviours and assumes most of that process is normal...no need to assume pathology
• It is not clear why criminal behaviour is sometimes learnt and sometimes not
• Controversial hypothesis with weak support: Cullen, Genreau, Jarjoura, and Wright (1997) concluded that intelligence is only weakly correlated with intelligence, and that other factors are more important
• Some people still try to link intelligence and criminality
• Self-regulation


  Ability to control your behaviour in various situations
• Low self-regulation


  Linked to aggression
• Failure to control impulses leads to a number of problem behaviours, including aggression and violence
• Self-regulation is a mental/psychological resource
• Various behaviours that require self-control can use up self-regulation and leave you vulnerable
• If you are less able to control your actions, you also may be more likely to commit inappropriate or criminal behaviour
• DeWall, Baumeister, Stillman, & Gailliot (2007) study


  • Participants who had previously employed self-regulation were more aggressive when provoked than other participants
• Finkel, De Wall, Slotter, Oaten, and Foshee (2009) study


  • Self-regulatory failure and intimate partner violence perpetration
  • People differ on self-regulation ability, which predicts intimate partner violence
  • Situational factors can also impact self-control, which in turn, affect violence
• Biological explanations

  • Hormones, neurotransmitters, temperament can be influenced by biology
  • Biology can influence many variables, such as intelligence, self-regulation, aggressiveness
  • Warning: myths and false ideas about innate/biological determinants can lead to false assumptions or conclusions about criminality in out-groups
• Evidence


  • Hormones (e.g., testosterone) impact aggressiveness
  • Twin studies (e.g., Forsman and Langstrom, 2012) suggest genetics may play a role in linking adult violence across generations
  • Heritability of aggression about 50%, but several genes appear related to aggression, likely impacting via hormones and neurotransmitters, such as dopamine
  • The RBFOX1 gene is involved in neuronal development, and some evidence links it to aggression in animals and humans
• Eclectic approaches may be most helpful
• Some instances of crime may be one-time events, others can be symptomatic of chronic problems
• Different causal factors can come into play over long periods of time
• Biosocial theory of crime (Hans Eysenck)


  • Biological factors have a big impact on criminal behaviour, but that impact depends, to various degrees, on external factors
  • Personality and environment produce crime
• Factors in biosocial theory of crime


  • Biology of the individual (e.g., genes that affect neurotransmitters)
  • Psychology of the individual (e.g., person becomes neurotic)
  • Social factors (socialisation by harsh parent)
  • Crime (if the opportunity is there)
• Evidence on biosocial theory is mixed
• Theory has good scope, trying to explain a range of crime, but is too broad, lacking explanation for many aspects of crime
• Factors that increase risk of delinquency in childhood


  • More extreme, punitive ways to raise children
  • Lack of love or rejection
  • Lack of supervision
  • Family disruption
  • Deviant parents
• These can combine with additional factors to increase the risk of delinquency: individual characteristics (low self-control), bad neighbourhoods, media violence and violence modelling
• Anderson and Dill (2000) study


  • University students who reported playing more violent video games in junior and high school engaged in more aggressive behavior
• Engelhardt, Bartholow, Kerr, and Bushman (2011) study


  • People who play violent video games show diminished brain responses to images of real-life violence, becoming desensitized to violence, which was positively correlated with aggression
• The APA's task force on television, reporting in early 1992, noted several facts about media and aggression/negative perceptions

  
  

  The average child sees 100,000 acts of violence and 8,000 murders before the end of elementary school.

  
  

  The rate of violence on prime-time TV is five to six incidents per hour but on Saturday mornings, it's 20 to 25.

  
  

  Minorities are virtually absent and when they do show up, they are often victims or criminals.

  
  

  TV has no clear effect on school achievement or academic skills.

  
  

  Girls who watch the most TV have the most negative attitudes toward women.
• How do violent video games increase aggression?


  1. Practice: repeat behavior over and over

  2. Reinforcement: They make you feel good/have a good time. Games are very entertaining and interactive

  3. Develop a script for acting aggressively

  4. You become desensitized to violence and aggression: participants who played violent games had lower heart rate and lower skin-response measures (lower arousal)
• However, the effect of violent video games on aggression seems to be small, so they may not be as important a factor in the development of violence as some theorise