Psychological Theories

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Psychological Theories

• Personality
• Psychological Theories

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Criminal Mind
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Personality

• Personality can be defined as the reasonable
  stable patterns of behavior, including thoughts
  and emotions that distinguish one person from
  another (Mischel, 1986)
• Cattell defined personality as that which
  permits a prediction of what a person will do in
  a given situation"

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Personality

• The way people behave is a function of how out
  personality enables us to interpret life events,
  and make behavioral choices
• Shyness -avoiding personal contacts, especially
  with unknown persons, feeling unease during
  social contacts, not finding anything to talk
  about with most people

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Personality and Crime

• Many criminological theories use personality
  traits to explain between individual differences
  in criminal behavior

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Criminology

• Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck identified a
  number of personality traits that they believe
  characterize antisocial youth self-assertiveness,
  defiance, impulsiveness, suspicion, hostility,
  sadism, resentment, mental instability,
  extroversion, ambivalence, and destructiveness

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Structural Models of Personality

• Five-Factor Model
• Eysenk Model

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Five Factor Model

• 1. Neuroticism is "a dimension of personality
  defined by stability and low anxiety at one end
  as opposed to instability and high anxiety at the
  other end"
• 2. Extroversion is defined as "a trait
  characterized by a keen interest in other people
  and external events, and venturing forth with
  confidence into the unknown"

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Five Factor Model

• 3. Openness refers to how willing people are to
  make adjustments in notions and activities in
  accordance with new ideas or situations
• 4. Agreeableness measures how compatible people
  are with other people, or basically how able they
  are to get along with others
• 5. Conscientiousness refers to how much a person
  considers others when making decisions

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Eysenk Model
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Hoyle et al, 2000

• Examined the relations between several
  personality models and risky sexual behavior
• They found that Extraversion (Eysenk), Low
  Agreeableness and low Conscientiousness (FFM) are
  strongly correlates of risky sexual behavior

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Empirical research

• Both High and Low Neuroticism was found to be
  related to criminal behavior
• Individuals who are extremely emotionally stable
  (i.e. low in anxiety) behave antisocially because
  normal fear that keeps most people from behaving
  antisocially is missing
• Individuals who are not emotionally stable may be
  prone to impulsive acts

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Psychopath

• Images from movies like "Silence of The Lambs"
  and characters with names like "Hannibal Lector"
• Serial killers and people involved in ritual
  torture are rare, but psychopathic behavior is
  more common than you might think

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Psychopath

• Antisocial personality
• A teen who had no sense of guilt
• Personality of a hard-core juvenile delinquent
• He could learn the rules, but he had no sense of
  conscience
• "People know when something is wrong because it
  feels wrong. I have to remember or be reminded
  that stealing from someone is wrong. I dont feel
  bad if I take something."

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Psychopath

• Children with this condition are "emotionally
  blind
• A psychopath is not necessarily a bad person
• But they are prone to have problems with society,
  rules, expectations and relationships
• They may end up living a "predatory" lifestyle,
  feeling little or no regret, and having little or
  no remorse - except when they are caught or about
  to be locked up

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Warning signs (Robert Hare, the leading expert on
the Psychopathic Personality)

• superficial charm
• self-centered self-important
• need for stimulation prone to boredom
• deceptive behavior lying
• little remorse or guilt
• shallow emotional response
• poor self-control
• promiscuous sexual behavior

• early behavioral problems
• lack of realistic long term goals
• impulsive lifestyle
• irresponsible behavior
• blaming others for their actions
• short term relationships
• juvenile delinquency
• breaking parole or probation
• varied criminal activity

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Biology and psychopath

• Research using brain scanning technology has
  revealed that the brain of a psychopath functions
  and processes information differently
• This suggests that they may be physically
  different from normal people
• Psychopaths can remain calm looking photos of
  dead bodies in automobile accidents where as
  other people were clearly upset

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Ted Bundy




The most frightening of serial killers a
handsome, educated psychopathic law student who
stalked and murdered dozens of young college
women who looked very much like a young woman who
broke off her relationship with him.Bundy was a
very adept and glib con artist who faked a broken
arm in a sling to convince young women to help
him carry his textbooks to his car. Once there,
he battered them with a baseball bat and carried
them off for ghoulish rituals

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What to do with psychopath

• So what happens to kids if they dont learn right
  from wrong?
• Parents usually end up angry and frustrated
• Many parents resort to punishment
• But what these children need is intensive
  guidance, instruction, training, choices,
  consequences and supervision
• Severe and repeated punishment alone is the worst
  thing parents can do
• And child abuse is a sure way to create a social
  misfit or a monster.

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Psychoanalytic Theory

• All humans have criminal tendencies
• Criminal tendencies are normal
• The idea of personality conflict as a cause of
  crime
• Through the process of socialization these
  tendencies are curbed by the development of inner
  controls that are learned through childhood
  experience

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Freud hypothesized

• That the most common element that contributed to
  criminal behavior was faulty identification by a
  child with her or his parents
• The improperly socialized child may develop a
  personality disturbance that causes her or him to
  direct antisocial impulses inward or outward
• The child who directs them outward becomes a
  criminal, and the child that directs them inward
  becomes a neurotic.

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The Discovery of the Unconscious

• The father of psychoanalysis
• Structural Model
• Id, ego, superego
• We are born with our Id
• Id is based on our pleasure principle( if it
  feels good, do it)
• The id doesn't care about reality, about the
  needs of anyone else, only its own satisfaction

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EGO

• Within the next three years, the Ego develops 
• The ego is based on the reality principle
• The ego understands that other people have needs
  and that sometimes being impulsive or selfish can
  hurt us in the long run
• The ego's job to meet the needs of the id, while
  taking into consideration the reality of the
  situation.  

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Superego

• By five, the Superego develops
• This is the moral part of us and develops due to
  the moral and ethical restraints placed on us by
  our caregivers
• Many equate the superego with the conscience as
  it dictates our belief of right and wrong
•  

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Unconscious

• Majority of what we experience in our lives, the
  underlying emotions, beliefs, feelings, and
  impulses are not available to us at a conscious
  level
• He believed that most of what drives us is
  buried in our unconscious  
• Oedipus and Electra Complex are pushed down into
  the unconscious, out of our awareness due to the
  extreme anxiety they caused
• While buried there, however, they continue to
  impact us dramatically

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Electra Complex

• According to Freud, during the phallic stage (3-5
  years) the daughter becomes attached to her
  father and more hostile towards her mother
• This is due mostly to the idea that the girl is
  "envious" of her father's penis and wants to
  possess it so strongly that she dreams of bearing
  his children, thus the term "penis-envy
• This leads to resentment towards her mother, who
  the girl believes caused her castration.

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Conscious

• Freud also believed that everything we are aware
  of is stored in our conscious
• Our conscious makes up a very small part of who
  we are
• In other words, at any given time, we are only
  aware of a very small part of what makes up our
  personality most of what we are is buried and
  inaccessible.

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Subconscious

• This is the part of us that we can access if
  prompted, but is not in our active conscious
• Its right below the surface, but still buried
  somewhat unless we search for it
• Information such as our telephone number, some
  childhood memories, or the name of your best
  childhood friend is stored in the preconscious

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Healthy balance

• We can think of the id as the 'devil on our
  shoulder' and the superego as the 'angel on your
  shoulder.
• We don't want either one to get too strong so we
  talk to both of them, hear their perspective and
  then make a decision

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Delinquent behavior

• Is a result of defective superego
• Inability to feel guilt, to learn from
  experience, or to feel affection to others

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Delinquent Behavior

• Is a result of overdeveloped superego
• Represses the id so harshly that pressure builds
  up in the id and there is an explosion of
  acting-out behavior