Lecture 3 Mediums

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Psychological Explanations of Criminal Behaviour
Psychological Explanations. Criminal Personality.
Ciarán OKeeffe Room GLA014 Telephone ext.
3639 E-mail okeeffc_at_hope.ac.uk
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Lecture Content

• Psychological Theories of Crime
• Psychoanalytical
• Learning
• Social Psychology
• Cognitive

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Psychoanalytic Theories

• What is psychoanalysis?
• Psychoanalytic explanation of criminal behaviour
• Irrational unconscious motivations in criminal
  behaviour

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Psychoanalytic Framework

• PERSONALITY

EGO
ID
SUPEREGO
Self-serving/ pleasure-seeking
Reality
Moral Rules
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Psychoanalytical conceptions of crime

• If id impulses manifested highly antisocial
  behaviour
• If ego acts contrary to superegos moral rules
  punished with guilt anxiety
• Inadequate/dysfunctional superego tendency to
  behave antisocially

• Results from an abnormal relationship with the
  parents during childhood

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Psychoanalytical conceptions

• If superego excessively harsh punitive
• Person may be prone to engage in criminal
  behaviour (e.g. compulsive stealing)in order
  to punished for it.
• Desire to be punished related to guilt over
  unconscious infantile desires.

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Psychoanalytical conceptions

• If superego weak
• Person would feel less, if any, guilt or anxiety
  over antisocial acts
• Since anxiety/guilt responsible for straight
  narrowperson would have few inhibitions against
  acting on selfish/aggressive impulses from the
  id.
• PSYCHOPATH

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Psychoanalytical conceptions

• If superego deviant
• Young boy has a good relationship with a criminal
  father
• Internalises fathers values in usual course of
  development
• Therefore, internalises criminal attributes
• Consequently, superego wouldnt react negatively
  to contemplated criminal acts

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Evaluation of psychoanalytical research into crime

• Unscientific?
• Important assumptions
• Socialisation depends on childhood experiences
• Poor quality parent-child interaction related to
  later delinquency
• Criminal tendencies are manifestation of
  unconscious conflict

Shared Assumptions
Evidential Value?
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Maternal Deprivation Theory

• Bowlby (1951) psychoanalytically derived
  theory of delinquency (NB.
  Ethology).

• Studied juvenile delinquents referred
• to a child guidance clinic
• Compared 44 juvenile thieves to a
• matched group of non-delinquents
• 39 delinquents experienced
• disruption of maternal attachments
• before age of 5

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Maternal Deprivation Theory

• Criticisms
• Rutter (1971)
• Replication of original study
• Inadequate distinction between disruption,
  privation distortion of attachments
• Hollin (1989)
• Unrepresentative nature of sample
• Poor control group matching

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Psychological Profile

• 1st victim female, bludgeoned to death with a
  blunt instrument date 11.10.1999

• 2nd victim female, seriously injured through
  blows to the head with a blunt instrument date
  23.11.1999

• 3rd victim female, stabbed to death with a
  knife
• date 4.12.1999

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Learning Theories of Crime

• Generally
• view crime as a set of behaviours learned in
  the same way as any other
• stresses role of family and peer group
• stresses role of reinforcement and punishment

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Differential Association Theory

• Sutherland (1939)
• Criminal behaviour learned through exposure to
  criminal norms

CRIMINALITY
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Differential Association Theory

• Criminal behaviour is an expression of needs
  values (e.g. need for money)
• People who become criminals will have been
  socialised within groups with at least some
  pro-criminal norms
• If a person acquires more favourable attitudes to
  crime, they may become a criminal

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Differential Association Theory

• Evidence
• Pro-criminal norms ( criminal activity) in
  families/peer groups of criminals
• NB. Genetic contributions to crime
• Matthews (1968) juvenile delinquency friends
• Criticisms
• Blackburn (1993)
• Applies to vandalism and petty theft
• Evidence correlational
• Direction of causality?
• Explains acquisition of tendenciesdoesnt
  account for performance maintenance of criminal
  behaviours

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Social Learning Theory

• Behaviours of any sort may be learned by
  observing others
• Criminal behaviour qualitatively no different
  from any other kind
• Individuals observed known as models
• Model Selection
• Depends on range of variables including status
• Models behaviour imitated depends on
  consequences of their actions
• Reinforcement Punishment

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Social Learning Theory

• Contribution to understanding of criminal
  behaviour
• Bandura et al. (1963)
• Demonstrated young children could acquire
  aggressive behaviours through observation of an
  adult model

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Bandura et al. (1963)
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Social Learning Theory

• BOBO DOLL STUDY (Bandura et al. 1963)
• "Clear the way" to adult size plastic doll. Then
  four novel aggressive responses, each with
  distinctive comments.
• (1) Laid model on side, sat on, punched in nose,
  "Pow, right on the nose, boom, boom.
• (2) Raised doll hit on head with mallet
  "Sockeroo...stay down"
• (3) Kicked doll around room "Fly away"
• (4) Threw rubber balls at doll, each strike with
  "Bang"
• The sequence done twice.

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Social Learning Theory

• Strengths
• Stresses uniqueness of the individual
• Concedes that different people may commit the
  same crimes for different reasons
• Individuals motivations and expectations are
  based on their unique learning experiences

• Criticisms
• Underplays role of cognitive factors (e.g.
  decision making)
• Largely based on lab studies
• Determinist

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Media-aggression hypothesis

• Early studies highlighted possibility that
  children could learn to behave by observing
  aggression in media
• Television
• Cinema
• Violent video games
• Music

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Other Social Psychological ideas

• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• Social Psychological idea
• Relates to Labelling Theory sociological idea

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Cognitive Theories of Crime

• Yochelson Samenow (1976)
• Criminal Personality
• Kohlberg (1976)
• Moral Development
• Cornish Clark (1987)
• Rational Choice Theory

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MAP OF CRIME LOCATIONS
Offence 1
Offence 3
Offence 2
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Summary

• Psychoanalytical
• Learning
• Social Psychological
• Cognitive