Psychological Theories

1. Psychological Theories Personality Psychological Theories

2. Criminal Mind

3. 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"

5. 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

6. Personality and Crime • Many criminological theories use personality traits to explain between individual differences in criminal behavior

7. 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

8. Structural Models of Personality • Five-Factor Model • Eysenk Model

9. 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"

10. 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

11. Eysenk Model

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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 don’t feel bad if I take something."

16. 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

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

18. 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

19. 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

20. What to do with psychopath • So what happens to kids if they don’t 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.

21. 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

22. 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.

23. 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

24. 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.  

25. 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

28. 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

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. 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

32. 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

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

34. 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