Biological and Psychological Explanations

1. Biological and Psychological Explanations Lesson 5

2. Biological and Psychological Explanations Lesson Overview Biological Explanations Nineteenth Century Views Psychological Explanations Evaluation of Psychological Explanations

3. Biological Explanations • Attribute crime to traits inside the individual • Nineteenth Century Views • Phrenology: Study of skull size in relation to criminality • Cesare Lombroso, founder of positivist school • Atavism: Criminals are throwbacks to earlier stage of evolution • Criminals were evolutionary accidents who resembled primitive people more than modern people

4. Biological Explanations • Evidence of atavism • Measurements of bodies of men in Italian prison vs. measurements of bodies of Italian soldiers • Prisoners looked more like primitive men • Arms were abnormally long • Skulls and jaws were abnormally large • Bodies were very hairy • Etc.

5. Lombroso on Women • Explanations of female criminality rested on antiquated notions of women’s biology and physiology • The Female Offender (1895) • Women were more likely than men to be atavists • The female criminal is monotonous and uniform compared with her male companion • Why do women commit so little crime?

6. Biological Explanations • Early Twentieth Century Views • Earnest Hooton: Biological Inferiority • Criminals were physiologically different • Cause of crime was biological inferiority • Advocated sterilization of criminals or exile • William Sheldon: Body Shapes • Somatology: Body shapes affect personalities • Endomorphs • Mesomorphs • Ectomorphs

7. Biological Explanations • Contemporary Explanations • Family, Heredity, and Genes • Early research on the Juke family • 140 of 1,000 were criminals; problem? No control group • Twin studies • High concordance among identical twins; problematic because they spend more time together, tend to have same friends, more attached to each other, etc. • Adoption studies, also inconclusive • Evolutionary biology, evolutionary predisposition for rape?

8. Biological Explanations • Contemporary Explanations • Family, Heredity, and Genes • Chromosomal abnormalities • Neurochemical factors • Hormones • Testosterone • Premenstrual syndrome • Neurotransmitters • Diet and nutrition • Pregnancy and birth complications • Early puberty

9. Arousal Theory • For a variety of genetic and environmental reasons, some people’s brains function differently in response to environmental stimuli and we seek to maintain an optimal level of stimulation.

10. Biomedical Conditions of Crime Chemical and Mineral Influences Under or over supply can cause depression, mania, cognitive problems, etc. Diet and Crime Artificial additives Sugar Twinkie Defense Hypoglycemia Low blood sugar

11. Biological Explanations • Evaluation of these explanations • Crime is too diverse for biological explanations to account for all behavior • Methodological problems in research studies • Cannot easily account for group rate differences • Social policy implications • We cannot change biology • Potential justification for appalling acts

12. Psychological Explanations • Tries to explain why a few people commit serious crimes, whereas most do not • Explains individual behavior • Says little about the larger social and structural forces also at work

13. Cognitive Components? • Cognitive theorists are psychologists who focus on how people perceive and mentally represent the world around them and solve problems. They also examine individual reasoning processes influence behavior and how reasoning is influenced by the way people perceive their environment.

14. Psychological Explanations • Psychoanalytic Explanations • Crime arises from internal disturbances from early childhood • Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis • Mental disorders derive from conflict between society and instinctive needs of the individual • Id • Ego • Superego

15. Psychoanalytic Explanations • Freud: People are inherently pleasure seeking because of the id, but that too much pleasure seeking can translate into antisocial behavior • The ego and superego thus need to restrain the id

16. Psychological Explanations • Psychoanalytic explanations limited in explaining criminal behavior • Suggests antisocial behavior is mentally disordered behavior • Neglects social factors and overemphasizes childhood experiences • Research in this area relies on case histories • Sexist in their explanation of females and their behavior

17. Psychological Explanations • Moral Development and Crime • Jean Piaget: Mental and moral development in children • Four stages of development • Sensorimotor: Birth to 2 years; learn through senses • Preoperational: 2-7 years; learning language, drawing, other skills • Concrete operations: 7-11 years; logical thinking and problem solving • Formal operations: 11-15 years; abstract ideas

18. Theory of Moral Development • Lawrence Kohlberg: Ability to distinguish right from wrong • In early stages, moral reasoning related solely to punishment • Later stages begin to realize society and parents have rules • People recognize universal moral principles supercede laws of any one society • Not everyone makes it through all stages of moral development

19. Psychological Explanations • Intelligence and Crime • Is low IQ to blame for criminal behavior? • Low IQ linked to delinquency • Poor school performance leads to less attachments to school • Lower self-esteem • Lower ability to engage in moral reasoning • Less able to appreciate consequences of actions

20. Psychological Explanations • Intelligence and Crime • Race, IQ, and Crime • Troubling racial overtones in contemporary research • Differences in IQs between blacks and whites • Methodological flaws in research

21. Personality and Crime • Rorschach tests: Ink blot tests/personality inventories • Showed greater personality problems in offenders • Temperament • Attention deficits • Impulsivity • Hyperactivity • Irritability • Coldness

22. Personality and Crime • New personality research has important implications for reducing crime • Preschool and early family intervention programs • Address aspects of social environment to reduce crime • Problems with new personality research • Cannot adequately account for relativity of deviance; do not help understand why one behavior instead of the other is chosen • Some people with personality problems do not break the law

23. Psychological Explanations • Evaluation of these explanations • Fill in smaller picture of crime • Psychological studies often use small, unrepresentative samples; results should be interpreted cautiously • Generally disregard structural factors (i.e. poverty) • Causal order remains unclear • Rarely study white-collar offenders

24. Abnormality or Normality? • Psychological approaches suggest crime/criminals are psychologically abnormal • Studies show that violent criminals have far higher levels of abnormal EEG recordings than non-violent or one time offenders • Can still commit crime and be “psychologically normal” • Milgram: Shock experiments • Zimbardo: Mock prison experiments