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Criminal Psychology - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Supporting Studies- Levine (1997) found increase levels of dopamine through amphetamine use causes aggressive behaviour, Cleare and Bond (1997) even in males with no psychaitric history showed low seratonin correlating with aggressiona and hostility Couppis & Kennedy (2008) found that dopamine levels in mice would increase and act as a reward during an aggressive acrt.
      - Hormones- Males and females both produce testosterone but women produce it in lower quantities, elevated levels of testosterone is associated with higher levels of aggression because hormones play a crucial role in male sexual development, muscle mass, bone density and link to social dominance going up in social rank if aggression is tied to that in certain contexts aggression can increase and therefore risk of criminal activity it also affects the brain parts responsible for emotional processing and decision-making, the age of men involved in violence in between 15-25 which coincides with highest testosterone levels, Anabolic steroids which have synthetic variants of testosterone are more likely to engage in violent acts.
        
        STRENGTHS- Dabbs et al (1995) took saliva samples from adult male prisoners to test their levels of testosterone found that those with higher levels of testosterone had a history of violent crime whereas those with low levels of testosterone had committed non-violent crimes, Albert et al (1986) found that rats were less likely to show social dominance when castrated (significantly reduced testosterone levels) Beaver et al (2008) people taking anabolic steroids (with synthetic testosterone) more likely to engage in violent acts.
        
        WEAKNESSES- elevated levels of testosterone could be as much a result of violence as they are a contributor so a cause and effect relationship can't be established, people don't necessarily commit violent acts because they are angry with the victim some use violence to achieve a specific goal so testosterone cannot be a full explanation, there are different explanations both biological and social so not the sole explanations, research neurotransmitters research indicates dopamine not a cause of aggressive behaviour but a consequence of it.
    - - STRENGTHS Eysenck study on 2070 male prisoners found on measures of psychoticism, extroversion and neuroticism across all age groups ,the prisoners scored higher than controls. Boduszek et al (2013)- found that there were higher levels of extroversion amongst inmates who had higher levels of recidivism, EPI is a standerdised measure which is easy to replicate and thus can get reliable results, it is a more hollistic view out of biological explanations because it considers both 'nature' and 'nurture' factors to influence liklihood of criminal behaviour. This can also be applied to real-life where restorative justice can target people with high E&N scores differently to reduce recidivism rates.
      - WEAKNESSES Cochrane (1974) found criminals tended to score higher on N than controls HOWEVER did not score higher on E than controls Farrington (1992) "official offendors had high N scores and low E scores whereas self-report daya showed the opposite Unreliable= studies do not agree on findings, Explanation is reductionist since human behaviour is fluid and does not necessarily fit into the neat dimensions determined by the EPI, the theory also lacks explanatory power since it tells 'what' of criminal behaviour but not the 'why', There is also other aspects of personality like personality disorders where someone's thoughts, feelings are much different like in narcissists, antisocial people and paranoid. Micheal Stone (2007) showed people who were antisocial and paranoid were common under violent offendors
    - - WEAKNESSESS- Theilgaard (1988) found that increased XYY in prisons may be due to learning difficulties rather than XYY itself,XYY is not a full explanation since people with XYY only account for a small proportion of the prison population if it was a full exp then 100% of criminals would have XYY, on top of that this is a gender-specific explanation so does not explain why women commit crimes, it is hard to researchers to carry out tests to see if they have XYY syndrome as they need skilled professionals and it is expensive to get genetically tested so using visible characteristics like acne, being taller and having scars may be inaccurate way of measuring % of prison pop with XYY as it is more subjective
      - STRENGTHS Jacobs(1965) over-representation of XYY in prison 15/1000 instead of 1/1000 men, Witkins (1976) found men with XYY syndrome had reduced intelligence and poor attainment which lead to more criminal behaviour die to social reaction (less likely to defend themselves and more likely to get recognised), application to real-life studeis done on XYY can help researchers to reduce criminal behaviour by rollling out programmes to help them take action to stop recidivism/since birth to help with learning difficulties/jobs etc
    - - STRENGTHS Mednick et al (1984)- in Denmark adoption study fiund that people with criminal adoptive parents 14.7% had criminal convictions, while criminal birth parents were 24%, Slutske et al (1997)- higher incidence of conduct disorder in twins compared to singletons, Hutching & Mednick (1997) studied male adoptees found 87.5% of males with criminal record had a birth father with criminal record while no criminal record had a criminal birth father 31.1% of the time.
      - WEAKNESSES- not 100% concordance rate so must be other factors, different theories like brain injury, amygdala, and non-biological theories like SPF and SLT may affect more than heritability, Hutchning ^ Mednick is ungeneralisable since it is androcentric only males
    - - STRENGTHS Williams et al (2010)- 60% of 196 prisoners had a traumatic brain injury in the past (falling car accidents, sports) they also were relatively younger and had greater levels of recidivism & also increased antisocial behaviour, Dustin Pardini - 26 year olds with lower amygdala volumes 3x more likely to be aggressive, violent and show psychopathic traits, Cannon & Britton (1925) severed neural connections on cats' cortex which resulted in 'sham rage angry reaction when provoked hairi stadning on end, growling when ablated(removal of biological tissue) became passive, Raine et al 41 NGRIs found more activity in right side of amygdala and hippocampus PET scan glucose tracer compared to control group;
      - WEAKNESSESS- individual differences in brain injuries between individuals makes it hard to generalise as a strong cause and effect conclusion cannot be found,brain scanning while seen as scientific, reliable and objective way to measure smaller volume of amygdala it is hard to link this to psychopathic tendencies due to the range of other factors like age, gender, and early life experience and even harder to link psychopathic tendencies with crime & aggression, other factors like being young male witnessing violence in your family, having PTSD , alcohol and drug misuse can all contribute to impulsivity so hard to pinpoint brain injury as the cause of criminal behaviour (application as a strengths and weakness social control Williams et al suggested to use standard screening for young people to increase awareness and recommendation that neural imaging should be taken into account while sentencing), different theory like self-fulfilling prophecy
  - - - STRENGTHS- Jahoda (1954) - a study done on males showed there was a significantly higher arrest rate 22% in men born on wednesday compared to 6% on mondays. This is said to be linked to SFP since people born on monday often named something meaning 'mild-tempered while people born on Wednesday were named the opposite 'short-tempered' aggressive. Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968) a study done on students labelled 'bloomers' by teachers over 2 years showing an improvement in IQ scores (a change in behaviour due to teacher's beliefs) as they thrived more compared to others in the class.
      - WEAKNESSES- Lemert (1962) - cheque forgers had long been forging cheques before given the label so labelling did not affect self-image or influence crime, There is cultural bias in the Jahoda study so it is ungeneralisable to other cultures and not representative neither can it be replicated, R&J was an experiment done of children in education rather than criminals so cannot generalise the results to explain criminal behaviour, studies are not very scientific since they are hard to repeat and are unreliable, cannot explain individual difference between people for why some accept the label and act in a way to prove them wrong rather than the other way around
    - - STRENGTHS- Bandura (1961)- Bobo doll copying aggressive behaviour in kids Jamie Bulger Case two ten year olds committing murder copying violence they saw in a movie (blue paint) , Anderson & Dill (2000) - 210 psychology students played violent and non-violent games and competed with their opponents, afterwards they were asked to give a 'punishment' loud noise and they could control how volume and duration they found those who competed in the violent game had a louder sound for longer and long-term use could cause permanent aggressive thought patterns.
      - WEAKNESSES The theory can also not explain any individual type of crimes that seem to not take much influence from others, such as embezzlement. A study from Matseuda stated that there needed to be more research into the theory for it to be validated. A partial explanation does not account for biological explanations of criminal behaviour- hormones and neurotransmitters.