Exam 8: Psychological Positivism

Learning theories within psychology see offending as something that is learnt because they:

What is the focus of psychological positivism?

Rational choice theory suggests that the underlying assumption is that actors make calculations about future courses of action on the basis of some assessment, however incomplete or inadequate, of the balance between the benefits or problems that will result.

Routine activity theorists such as Cohen and Felson (1979) argue that there are three necessary elements for the commission of most crimes: • suitable targets (things worth stealing, attacking, etc.); • a motivated offender (understood through rational choice theory); • the absence of a 'capable guardian' (someone or something that might ordinarily deter the crime)

Until what age did Bowlby argue children need a consistent primary care giver?

What are the two types of reinforcement and punishment in operant learning theory?

Freud argued that the id, ego and superego are aspects of personality central to psychoanalytic theory. Which is the part that represents conscience in modern psychoanalytic theory?

What are the dangers associated with taking data from IQ tests more or less at face-value as actually measuring intelligence, and using this to construct arguments about the differing levels of offending measured among different ethnic groups.

Early life experiences are said to have an impact on later criminality because:

Psychologists and sociologists cannot agree about the causes of crime.

What are Eysenck's three personality components?

The Bobo doll experiment proved that children watching violent television scenes would lead them to behave aggressively.

Why have generally psychoanalytically-influenced theories such as Bowlby's become less popular as a means of explaining delinquency?

Kohlberg argued that offending behaviour is associated with less mature moral development. How might this lead them to be involved in criminal activities?

What are the main elements of differential association?

What percentage of a group of 'delinquent' young people studied by Boulby had experienced significant disruption in their relationships with their mothers?

In theory, what are the ways in which low intelligence could be related to criminality?

Social learning theory is said to have an element of motivation, types of which include:

Cognitive skills training programmes aim to focus directly on offenders' decision -making processes to stop them committing crimes.

What are the criticisms of Sutherland's theory?