Psychological explanations of offending

• What are the different psychological explanations of offending behaviour ?

  • Eysenck’s theory
  • cognitive distortions
  • Kohlberg’s moral development theory
  • differential association theory psychodynamic explanation
• What was Eysenck’s theory?


  • caused by a biological based on your nervous system you inherit
• What was Eysenck’s theory? The 3 dimensions?

  1. introversion — extroversion
  2. neuroticism - stability
  3. psychoticism - stability
• What was Eysenck’s theory? The 3 dimensions how they cause the offending behaviour ?


  • extroverts have a chronically under-aroused nervous system, so they constantly seek excitement, stimulation and are likely to engage in risk-taking and dangerous behaviours - explain some offending behaviour.
  • Neurotic have more reactive sympathetic nervous systems. They are unstable and so react easily. They may therefore overreact to situations of threat, explaining some offending behaviour.
  • Psychotics can easily be linked to offending behaviour as they are aggressiveand lack empathy.

   
• what did Eysenck suggested that the criminal personality type is ?


  • the neurotic - extrovert (i.e, unstable, nervous, sensatio—seeking, and outgoing). Additionally, offenders will score highly on measures of psychoticim - cold and unfeeling and prone to aggression. This is measured using the Eysenck personality inventory
• How dose Eysenck use socialisation as another explanation of offending behaviour ?

  • He says people with high extraversion and neurotics scores are hard to condition during childhood to delay gratification and behave socially. Criminal behaviour is selfish and concerned with immediate gratification.
• Evaluating Eysenck’s theory?

  • The idea that all ascending behaviour can be explained by a singular personality type has been heavily criticised. Digman‘s five factor model of personality suggest that alongside extraversion and neuroticism there are additional dimensions of openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. So multiple combinations are available and therefore a high extraversion and neuroticism school does not mean offending is inevitable
• Evaluating Eysenck’s theory ?


  • Eysenck and Eysenck compared 2070 male prisoners scores on the EPI with 2422 male controls. On measures of psychotcism, extraversion and neuroticism prisoners recorded higher scores and controls. this suggests the predictions of the theory that criminals have higher scores on measures of the criminal personality suggesting that the theory has some validity.
• Evaluating Eysenck’s theory ?

  • Farrington et al reviewed several studies and found that offenders tended to score high on psychoticism measures but not for extroversion or neuroticism. They also found little evidence of consistent evidence in EEG measures between extraverts and introverts. Casting doubt on the psychological basis of Eysenck’s Siri and also implies the extraversion and neuroticism may not be typical characteristics of many criminals therefore the theory may not be externally valid
• What was Kohlberg’s explanation of offending behaviour ?

  level of moral reasoning
• what is Kohlberg’s theory of moral development?


  • It is based on judgements and decisions of right and wrong. The higher the stage the more sophisticated the reasoning
  • He said criminals show low levels of moral reasoning than non, groups of violent youths were lower moral development than non-violent youths
• what is Kohlberg’s theory of moral development - what was his 3 types of moral levels?


  • level 1 - preconventional morality - punishment orientated, obedience to avoid it and for personal gain
  • level 2 - conventional morality- rules are bad for approval, maintenance of social order
  • level 3 - post conventional morality - morality of conscience, morality of contract and individual rights
• Kohlberg‘s moral development what stages are criminala and non criminals in?

  • criminal offenders are more likely to be classified at the pre-conventional level where is non-criminals are more likely to have progressed to the conversional level and beyond
• Evaluating Kohlbergs moral development theory?

  • there is research evidence to support the theory of moral development. Palmer and Hollin - compared moral reasoning between 210 female non-offenders, 122 male non-offenders and 126 convened offenders using 11 moral dilemma related questions. The delinquent group showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-delinquent group. This is consistent with the theories predictions about offenders being classified at the pre-conventional level.
• evaluating Kohlberg’s theory of moral development?

  • The theory was only based on samples of males and boys and yet assumed to apply to all. When he studied women, he found that they were less morally developed than men. His beta bias meant that he ended up exaggerating the differences between male and women (alpha bias). Gilligan found that men favoured ad justice orientation while women favoured a caring orientation neither is better. They are just different. So kohlberg‘s Siri cannot be considered an extremely valid theory of offending as it may not apply to women in the same way as men
• What makes up the cognitive distortions theory?


  • Say that offending behaviour is due to faulty and bias way of thinking
  • examples of two cognitive distortions which are particularly relevant to crime are hostile attribution bias and minimalisation
• What is hostile attribution bias? (cognitive distortions.)?


  • it is the tendency to misinterpret or misread other peoples actions as expressions of aggression or confrontational when in reality it is not.
  • Research for hostile attribution bias found 55 violent offenders more likely to interpret ambiguous as threatening than nonviolent control group
• What is minimalisation? (cognitive distortions.)?

  • it is the attempt to downplay the seriousness of one’s own offence to explain the consequences as less significant.
  • Babaree - 54% of rapists denied 40% minimised harm
• evaluating cognitive distortions as an explanation of offending behaviour?

  • There is research evidence to support hostile attribution bias. 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous expressions. When compared with matched control normal participants, the violent offenders were significantly more likely to perceive the image as angry and hostile. Suggesting that such misinterpretations of non-verbal cues may at least partly explain aggressive impulsive behaviour of individuals so support the validity of the cognitive distortion as an explanation of offending.
• evaluating cognitive distortions as an explanation of offending behaviour?

  • Understanding the nature of cognitive distortions is beneficial in the treatment of offending behaviour. The dominant approach in rehabilitating sex offenders is CBT. Which encourages offenders to face up to what they have done and establish a less distressed view of their actions. suggest that reduced incident of denial and minimisation in therapy is highly correlated with a reduced risk of re-offending. Dis supports that has real world applications and therefore external validity.
• Evaluation of the cognitive explanations of offending both cognitive distortions and the theory of moral development?

  • The cognitive explanations are more descriptive of the criminal mind. Essentially, they are after the fact theories and although they may be useful when predicting reoffending they tend to not give us much insight into why the offender commits the crime in the first place. Suggesting that the series may not be entirely internally valued as a cause and effect cannot be established.
• Who can up with the differential association theory?

  Sutherland
• What is the differential association theory? (Sutherland)

  • Social learning theory -learning attitudes to crime through association at integration with different people
  • sutherland wanted to develop a scientific principles to explain all types of offending
• What were Sutherland‘s ways to explain offending?


  • Learning attitudes towards crime
  • The learning of specific criminal acts
• What is Learning attitudes towards crime (Sutherland - DAT)?


  • Pro-crime attitude = criminality
  • Sutherland argues if the number of pro-criminal attitudes a person acquires outweighs the number of anti-criminal attitudes then they will go on to offend
  • A simple calculation to predict the likelihood of someone committing a crime all we need to know is; The frequency intensity and duration of their exposure to criminal and non-criminal norms and values.
• what is Learning specific acts (Sutherland DAT)?

  • Criminals are taught or can observe how to commit crime (and get away with it)
  • Role models may provide opportunities to model are successful themselves in theses criminal activities this would provide vicarious reinforcement making the individual more likely to offend in order to achieve the same reward
  • offenders may also learn particular techniques from committing crimes e.g how to break into someone’s house or disable a care stereo
• Socialisation in prison (Sutherland DAT)


  socialisation in prison might breed more criminal behaviour and explain reoffending rates
• Evaluating differential assignation theory - strength ?

  DAT can account for crimes within all sectors of society. Sutherland was particularly interested in white collar or corporate crime and how this may be a feature of middle class social groups who share deviant norms and values
• Evaluating differential assignation theory - strengths?


  • The theory marked an important shift from blaming individual factors to pointing to social factors
  • Osborne and West 1979 found that where there is a father with criminal conviction, 40% of sons has committed a crime by the age of 18 compared to 13% of sons of non-criminals fathers
• Evaluating differential association theory - strength ?


  • Akers et Al 1979 surveyed 2500 adolescents in the US and found that the most important influences on drink and drug behavior was from peers. Differential association differential association differential reinforcement and imitation combined to account for 68% of the variance in marijuana use and 55% of alcohol use
• Evaluating differential association theory - weakness ?

  • The data from supportive evidence is correlational. It may be that offenders seek out other offenders rather than being influenced by them. Additionally Osborne and West results could just as easily be explained by genetics as differential association.
  • There is a danger within DAT of stereotyping individuals who come from improvised crime ridden backgrounds as unavoidably criminal. The theory tends to suggest that exposure to pro criminal values is sufficient to produce offending in those who are exposed.

   

   
• Who came up with the psychodynamic explanation of offending?

  wasn’t created by Freud himself but was based off his theory of the psychodynamic approach
• The psychodynamic explanations of offending are

  • The inadequate superego
  • Maternal deprivation theory
• What is the inadequate super ego explanation?

  • The super ego develops after the phallic stage where children overcome their complex (oedipus or Electra) the child internal is the super ego of the same sax parent.
  • It works on the moral principle by exerting it’s influenced by punishing through guilt or wrongdoing whilst rewarding it with pride for moral behaviour
• What did Blackburn 1993 say about the super ego? (psychodynamic explanation.)


  Argue that if somehow the super ego is in adequate then offending behaviour is inevitable because the id is given free rein and isn’t properly controlled
• What are the three types of inadequate super egos that have been proposed?


  1. the weak Superego - identification and internalisation of a set of moral principles wasn’t possible as same-sex parents was absent during phallic stage
  2. The deviant superego - internalises immoral/deviant attitudes (e.g child with criminal parents) don’t associate guilt with wrongdoings
  3. The over harsh superego - child develop a very strict super ego -same-sex parents. Individuals act on impulse on their id so unconsciously driven to commit crime to satisfy superegos overwhelming need to punished
• Psychodynamic explanation -material deprivation theory


  • Bowlby believed healthy development was dependent on having a warm and continuous relationship with a mother. believed healthy development was dependent on having a warm and continuous relationship with a mother. It was seen as unique/superior bond.
  • An inability to do so in the critical period a fact psychopaths leading to delinquency due to the lack of guilt or empathy
  • 44 juvenile thieves - 14/44 affectionless psychopath. 12/14 had prolonged separation. Non-criminal group only had two that suffered from material deprivation.
• Evaluating psychodynamic explanations ?

  There is gender bias in such Freudian concepts.

  Freud belleved girls developed a weaker superego as they're under less pressure to identity with mother as there's no fear of castration. This would mean females are more inclined to crime than men - this is not reflected in prison ratios

  Hoffman's morality expiration
• Evaluating psychodynamic explanations ?


  Contradictory evidence for the emphasis on identification with a same sex paren during phallic stage. No evidence suggests those from same sex or single parent families develop diferently.

  Criminality running in families

  could also be due to genetics

  Going to lengths to satisfy an unconscious desire to punish doesn't explain why criminals go to great lengths to conceal crime and not face punishment
• Evaluating psychodynamic explanations ?


  There is a lack of falsifiability as psychodynamic explanations of the superego cannot be tested empirically. Only judged for face value rather than scientifically = pseudoscience.

  Criticism for Bowlby's research