psych

• Different types of crime

  • Acquisitive
  • Anti-social
  • Drug-related
  • Violent
• Acquisitive crime


  Taking money or belongings without the consent/knowledge of the owners
• Anti-social crime


  Causing harassment or distress to people who are not part of your family
• Drug-related crime


  Trading or using illegal substances
• Violent crime


  Causing physical harm or even death to someone else
• Crimes are any acts against the law
• Laws differ depending on the society
• Crime is seen as a social construct
• Laws change over time as society changes
• What is considered criminal or anti-social behaviour is determined by what is acceptable at any point in time by the people who make up the culture
• Social construct


  Something that is not real but exists because people in society have created it through social interaction
• Deviation from norms


  Something that differs from what is considered socially acceptable
• Revised types of crime

  • Use of child pornography
  • Physical assault
  • Murder
• Official statistics are produced by the Government's Home Office based on crimes recorded by the police force
• Self-report surveys allow researchers to find out about crimes that are not reported or detected
• Victim surveys are questionnaires given to the general public to find out what crimes have been committed against them
• Offender surveys are questionnaires given to the general public or to a more specific group of known offenders to find out about crimes that may or may not be on record
• Social Learning Theory


  Criminal and anti-social behaviours are learned behaviours
• Role model


  A person who is admired and therefore imitated
• Vicarious reinforcement


  A behaviour is imitated because it is seen to be rewarded
• Direct reinforcement


  A behaviour is repeated because it has been rewarded
• Internalisation


  When a behaviour is well learned and will happen whether it is rewarded or punished
• The Social Learning Theory focuses too much on nurture and ignores the role of nature
• If criminal behaviour is imitated from others, from where did it originate in the first place?
• Attempts to control criminal behaviour, such as age restrictions on films and video games, have not been that successful in stopping the rise of crime
• The nature vs nurture debate is about whether people are born with certain traits or behaviours (nature) or whether it is a result of their experiences (nurture)
• The Cooper & Mackie study aimed to see whether video games had more effect on violent behaviour than TV, and whether there were any gender differences in the effects
• The independent variable was the type of game played - a violent video game, a non-violent video game or a paper-and-pen game
• The dependent variable was aggression level displayed by the children after playing the game
• Participants in the aggressive game condition spent more time playing with the aggressive toy than participants who played one of the other games, and this was truer of girls than boys
• The type of game played had no effect on interpersonal aggression
• Children showed higher levels of aggression when they had actually played a game rather than watched it being played
• The study lacked ecological validity because it was carried out in artificial conditions
• The study used independent means so it is possible that the violent video game condition showed higher levels of aggression because of the individuals who happened to be allocated to that group
• The sample was not representative of other cultures and other age groups as it was only carried out on American children
• Only the immediate effect of violent games was tested whereas, in reality, playing games like this may have a greater effect over time
• The findings are out of date as computer games are very different nowadays
• Eysenck's criminal personality theory


  Criminal behaviour is a product of personality rather than reason
• Extraversion


  Being very active and sociable
• Neuroticism


  Being worrying and easily upset