Topic Summaries

Psychological explanation of offending behaviour

A-Level > Psychology > AQA > A-Level Psychology Topic Summaries > Forensic psychology > Psychological explanation of offending behaviour
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Addiction

  • Criminal personality theory:
    • 👥 Eysenck (1964) proposed that criminal behaviour is linked to personality, which can be measured along three dimensions:
      • Extraversion–Introversion (level of cortical arousal)
      • Neuroticism–Stability (emotional stability and response to stress)
      • Psychoticism (added later, linked to aggression, hostility, and lack of empathy)
    • The criminal personality is typically high in neuroticism and extraversion, and also high in psychoticism.
    • Biological basis: personality traits are influenced by the activity of the nervous system (e.g. arousal levels, sensitivity to stress). These biological factors affect how individuals respond to conditioning and socialisation.
    • People with the criminal personality are less responsive to socialisation processes. They do not learn to associate antisocial behaviour with punishment effectively. This makes them more likely to engage in crime, as they fail to view antisocial behaviour as negative.
  • Cognitive distortions:
    • 👥 Kohlberg (1958) put forth three universal laws of moral reasoning:
      • Pre-conventional level: avoiding punishment or self-interest.
      • Conventional level: ‘good boy attitude,’ acting in accordance with social expectations and laws.
      • Post-conventional level: social contracts and universal ethical principles to justify responses.
    • He theorised that criminals have an immature sense of reasoning. They act at the pre-conventional level whereas non-criminals operate on the conventional or postconventional level, giving them empathy and more socially acceptable behaviour.
    • Cognitive distortions are examples of dysfunctional thought processing that show errors in logic. The two main cognitive distortions are:
      • Hostile attribution bias (HAB): when individuals view non-threatening situations as hostile, so hostility is their immediate reaction.
      • Minimalisation: common amongst sex offenders; used to cope with any feelings of guilt or regret where they will downplay the significance of their crimes and the effect on their victim.
  • Differential association theory:
    • 👥 Sutherland (1939) suggested that crime is a learned behaviour and can be explained by social leaning theory. Role models are criminal peers that they admire and strive to be like so act accordingly. It’s possible to predict the likelihood of someone to become a criminal based on exposure to pro-criminal attitudes.
    • Individuals will learn attitudes towards crime as well as how to accomplish the crimes. If they are exposed to more pro-criminal attitudes than anti-criminal attitudes, there is a high likelihood of them becoming criminal.

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