Deck 2: Theories of Criminal Deviance

Question 1

Name the advocates of theories linking physical type to deviance and discuss their beliefs.

Answer 1

The advocates of theories linking physical type to deviance include Cesare Lombroso and William Sheldon.

Cesare Lombroso, an Italian criminologist, believed in the theory of "atavism," which suggested that criminals were evolutionary throwbacks to earlier, more primitive forms of humans. He argued that certain physical characteristics, such as a sloping forehead, strong jaw, and extra fingers, were indicative of a "born criminal." Lombroso's theory linked physical type to deviance by suggesting that individuals with these physical traits were predisposed to criminal behavior.

William Sheldon, an American psychologist, developed the theory of "somatotypes," which proposed that there were three basic body types - endomorphs (round and soft), mesomorphs (muscular and athletic), and ectomorphs (thin and fragile) - and that these body types were linked to certain personality traits. Sheldon believed that mesomorphs were more likely to engage in criminal behavior due to their aggressive and dominant nature.

Both Lombroso and Sheldon's theories linking physical type to deviance have been widely criticized and discredited. Critics argue that these theories are reductionist and fail to consider the complex social, environmental, and psychological factors that contribute to deviant behavior. Additionally, these theories have been accused of perpetuating harmful stereotypes and stigmatizing individuals based on their physical appearance. Overall, while these theories were influential in shaping early criminological thought, they are no longer considered valid explanations for deviant behavior.

Question 2

What role does heredity play in deviant behavior? How do personality traits effect behavior?

Answer 2

Heredity can play a role in deviant behavior through genetic predispositions. Certain genetic factors may make individuals more susceptible to engaging in deviant behavior, such as impulsivity or aggression. However, it's important to note that heredity is just one factor and does not determine behavior on its own.

Personality traits can also have a significant impact on behavior. For example, individuals with high levels of extraversion may be more likely to seek out thrilling or risky experiences, potentially leading to deviant behavior. Similarly, individuals with low levels of conscientiousness may be more prone to impulsive or irresponsible actions.

Overall, while heredity and personality traits can influence behavior, they are just one piece of the puzzle. Environmental factors, upbringing, and personal choices also play a crucial role in determining whether an individual engages in deviant behavior.

Question 3

How does Freud view deviant behavior?

Answer 3

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, had a complex view of deviant behavior, which he believed stemmed from the unconscious mind and unresolved psychological conflicts. Freud's perspective on deviance can be understood through his model of the human psyche, which he divided into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego.

1. The Id: According to Freud, the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories. It operates on the pleasure principle, seeking immediate gratification of its desires without considering the consequences.

2. The Ego: The ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the morals of the superego. It operates on the reality principle, trying to satisfy the id's desires in a socially acceptable way.

3. The Superego: The superego incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one's parents and others. It works to suppress the urges of the id and tries to make the ego act upon idealistic standards rather than upon realistic principles.

Freud believed that deviant behavior occurs when there is an imbalance between these three parts of the psyche. For example:

- If the id becomes too strong, an individual may engage in behavior that seeks immediate gratification without regard for societal norms or the rights of others, which could manifest as criminal or deviant acts.

- If the ego is weak, it may not be effective in managing the demands of the id and the prohibitions of the superego, leading to inappropriate or socially unacceptable behavior.

- If the superego is too strong or too rigid, it can lead to feelings of guilt and anxiety, which may result in neurotic behavior or other psychological issues.

Freud also believed that unresolved conflicts during any of the psychosexual stages of development could lead to fixation and eventually to deviant behavior. For instance, a person who is fixated at the oral stage might engage in behaviors such as smoking or overeating, while fixation at the phallic stage might result in deviant sexual behavior.

In summary, Freud viewed deviant behavior as a manifestation of an unresolved conflict within the individual's psyche, often stemming from childhood experiences and the failure to properly navigate through the stages of psychosexual development. He believed that through psychoanalytic therapy, individuals could uncover and work through these unconscious conflicts, thereby reducing or eliminating their deviant behaviors.

Question 4

How is sociobiology different from and similar to earlier theories of deviance?

Question 5

How does a Marxist explain deviance?

Question 6

According to Durkheim, what is the role of deviance in society? Define anomie and its effect on society.

Question 7

How does Merton's concept of anomie differ from Durkheim's? Give examples of the 'individual modes of adaptation.'

Question 8

What is a subculture? How may it lead to deviant behavior?

Question 9

What does Sutherland's concept of differential association say about how criminals learn?

Question 10

What is the emphasis of control theory?

Question 11

The XYY syndrome cause aggression and makes it more likely that one will become criminal.

Question 12

Antonio Moniz began what is known today as psychosurgery: the surgical removal, destruction, or cutting of brain tissue to disconnect one part of the brain from another with the intent of altering behavior.

Question 13

James Cowles Prichard's ordinary insanity is madness consisting in a morbid perversion of the natural feelings, affections, inclinations, temper, habits, moral dispositions, and natural impulses, without any remarkable disorder or defect of the intellect or knowing and reasoning faculties, and particularly without any insane illusion or hallucination.

Question 14

The term psychopathy refers to the behavior of a group of individuals who apparently committed crimes upon impulse with no motive except perhaps some satisfaction from the act itself.

Question 15

According to Sigmund Freud, conflicts may develop between the id and the ego at the unconscious level and result in behavior that is symbolic of the ongoing unconscious conflicts.

Question 16

Edward O. Wilson's sociobiology assumes that human social behavior is genetically determined to the extent that biology defines human learning potential.

Question 17

The earliest determinists were Andre-Michel Guerry and Lambert A.J. Quetelet.

Question 18

Willem Bonger argues that capitalism with its competition and its subordinate class struggling for the necessities of life strengthens "social feelings" and thus encourages egoism, which causes deviance.

Question 19

Emile Durkheim claims that deviance is inevitable and necessary for the health and progress of society, and thus is normal.

Question 20

According to Emile Durkheim, anomie signified a lack of integration and adjustment that threatens the cohesiveness of contemporary industrial societies, or a state of "normlessness."

Question 21

The American dream that everyone can acquire material wealth is attainable for all.

Question 22

What Robert K. Merton calls "modes of individual adaptation" are essentially the logical possible behavioral alternatives expressed in terms of the acceptance and rejection of goals and norms.

Question 23

According to Albert K. Cohen, lower-class boys retreat into delinquent gangs because they find it hard to meet the criteria set by their middle-class teachers using middle-class standards.

Question 24

Richard A. Cloward and Lloyd E. Ohlin elaborate on Merton's theory of anomie by introducing the concept of differential association, which means that access to any opportunity, whether legitimate or illegitimate, varies according to time and place.

Question 25

Subcultural theories suggest that deviance arises from membership in a group whose beliefs and attitudes support such behavior.

Question 26

Clifford A. Shaw claimed that deviance concentrated in areas furthest from the "central business district."

Question 27

Travis Hirschi argues that the bond to society consists of four interrelated elements: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.

Question 28

Travis Hirschi and Michael R. Gottfredson's General Theory of Crime suggests that some people simply pursue pleasure and commit crime in the short term as they have learned the values supporting such behavior.

Question 29

_________________ claimed that there is a relationship between deviance and mental deficiency.

Question 30

Earnest Albert Hooton believed that criminals were an _______ physical type.

Question 31

Samuel Yochelson and Stanton E. Samenow assert that criminals mold their environments and are characterized by 52 __________.

Question 32

_____________ is the view that crime is a product of society.

Question 33

Karl Marx claimed that all social phenomenon - legal codes, political institutions, religion, ethics, the arts, the family - are products of a society's economy in the form of its ___________.

Question 34

Merton's theory of anomie involves the interaction of two social components: __________ and __________.

Question 35

Edwin Sutherland, in his theory of ____________, argues that criminal behavior is learned within intimate personal groups.

Question 36

______________ states that deviance is caused not by the presence of deviant values, beliefs, or other motivating factors, but by the absence of values and beliefs that normally forbid delinquency.

Question 37

______________ theorists explain increases in crime in a given area by suggesting that suitable targets, capable guardians, and motivated offenders interact.

Question 38

The results of mass testing of World War I draftees eventually overturned the theory that deviance:

A) was inherited
B) resulted from moral insanity
C) was linked with the XYY chromosome syndrome
D) was associated with feeblemindedness
E) was linked with brain malfunction

Question 39

The family histories of the Jukes and the Kallikaks were used to promote a(n) ______________ theory of deviance:

A) atavistic
B) Hereditary feeblemindedness
C) poverty
D) identical twin
E) subcultural

Question 40

Eugenics is a science of:

A) human improvement
B) economic determinism
C) comparing human twins
D) intelligence testing
E) psychopathy

Question 41

Twin studies on deviance attempt to find a high correspondence between the behaviors of:

A) fraternal twins
B) concordant twins
C) identical twins
D) misfunctioned twins
E) discordant twins

Question 42

Somatology is the science of:

A) sleep disorders as a cause of deviant behavior
B) Classifying human physical characteristics
C) comparing the behaviors of twins and siblings
D) comparing the behaviors of twins and siblings
E) diagnosing mental disorders

Question 43

Recent research on the XYY chromosome syndrome indicates that:

A) among institutionalized males the syndrome occurs in about the same proportion as among noninstitutionalized males
B) the most obvious outward indication of the syndrome is short height
C) those with the syndrome tend to avoid homosexual contacts
D) The early claims linking the syndrome with aggression are false
E) these supermales are also super sexy

Question 44

Current theories of brain malfunction are designed to explain episodes of:

A) violence
B) theft
C) sexual impulses
D) emotional indifference
E) political corruption

Question 45

As advocated by Mark and Ervin, the application of psychosurgery to the remedy of deviance sounds much like:

A) the Freudian approach
B) Lombroso's theory of the born criminal
C) the assumption that deviance stems from feeblemindedness
D) neo-eugencis
E) Beccaria's theory

Question 46

The forerunner of the concept of psychopathy is:

A) born criminality
B) moral insanity
C) imbecility
D) psychosis
E) halitosis

Question 47

"Psychopath:"

A) is a highly controversial concept in psychiatry
B) has been included in the recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
C) refers to a condition involving hallucinations
D) is another term for neurotic
E) refers only to persons involved in violent offenses

Question 48

Explanations of deviance based upon the effect of mental processes and characteristics may be classified as forms of:

A) psychogenic determinism
B) psychopathic determinism
C) phenomenological determinism
D) lobopathology
E) sociogenic determinism

Question 49

A notable study, Yochelson and Samenow's The Criminal Personality, has problems which characterize many studies on personality traits of deviants. These include:

A) failure to include hospitalized offenders
B) an assumption that criminals are born with criminal tendencies
C) a failure to obtain a representative sample of most deviants
D) a and b above
E) all of the above

Question 50

In studies on the link between personality traits and deviant behavior, researchers frequently neglect the problem of "cause and effect." That is, they do not discover:

A) whether a trait is conscious or unconscious
B) whether the deviance is seen as deviant by the offender
C) whether one form of deviance causes another form of deviance
D) whether the traits preceded the deviance or vice versa
E) all of the above

Question 51

A basic assumption of the psychoanalytic approach is that:

A) deviants are born, not made
B) deviant behavior can be explained in terms of early life experiences
C) deviant behavior results genetic imbalances
D) deviant behavior results from rational decision making based on an evaluation of the pleasure and pain involved
E) none of the above

Question 52

One sociobiological theory of deviant behavior is suggested by Sarnoff A. Mednick, who claims that conformity is based on "passive avoidance": People conform because:

A) they are afraid not to
B) they learn that conformity is inherently satisfying
C) they face socio- economic and situational conditions which encourage conformity
D) their genetic code tells them what is right and wrong
E) their genetic code impedes their learning deviant norms

Question 53

Which of the following is a problem with most research that attempts to distinguish between deviants and non-deviants?

A) It fails to consider the relativity of deviance
B) It fails to consider the diversity of deviance
C) It fails to consider the order in which the characteristics of the deviants and their deviant acts occur
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

Question 54

Guerry and Quetelet were the first to conduct research within the framework of:

A) socio- economic status
B) individual pathology
C) social determinism
D) learning theory
E) psychogenic determinism

Question 55

The works of Karl Marx are examples of:

A) psychogenic determinism
B) learning theory
C) sociobiology
D) economic determinism
E) classical determinism

Question 56

Willem Bonger, whose writing built on the work of Marx, argued that behaviors prohibited by the criminal law were those harmful to:

A) the interests of the powerful
B) the most vulnerable in society
C) the general society
D) the working class

Question 57

During the early part of this century sociologists tried to explain most deviance in terms of:

A) poverty
B) power conflicts
C) class conflicts
D) social learning handicaps
E) labeling

Question 58

Durkheim argued that a society without deviance was impossible and that deviance:

A) would eventually destroy any society
B) was due to inadequate socialization of the poor
C) was beneficial to society
D) could not be avoided because class conflicts made deviance inevitable
E) led to anomie

Question 59

Durkheim's version of anomie referred to:

A) socially unregulated human aspirations
B) a strain in society which pushed its members toward deviance
C) a breakdown, disorganization, and inconsistency of norms
D) a lack of direction in terms of the institutionalized means
E) the learning of deviance

Question 60

According to Merton's version of anomie, ____________ are in short supply and thus unequally distributed to groups in society:

A) acceptable means to goals
B) power and prestige
C) defense mechanisms
D) socialization opportunities
E) wealth and property

Question 61

According to Merton's typology of adaptations to anomie, as an individual who accepts society's goals may be:

A) an innovator or retreatist
B) a conformist or ritualist
C) a retreatist or ritualist
D) an innovator or conformist
E) a ritualist or innovator

Question 62

Which of Merton's adaptations to anomie is most consistent wit explaining lower class property crime?

A) conformity
B) innovation
C) rebellion
D) retreatism
E) ritualism

Question 63

The mentally disordered, drug addicts, and alcoholics exemplify which of Merton's adaptation types?

A) Retreatism
B) Rebellion
C) Innovation
D) Ritualism

Question 64

One criticism of Merton's anomie theory is that it fails to consider:

A) the high priority which Americans place on the American Dream
B) the pluralistic nature of American society
C) that much of the deviance Merton wished to explain is concentrated in the lower class
D) that society may act to pressure its members toward deviance
E) a and c above

Question 65

Subcultures are characterized by:

A) a special vocabulary or argot
B) shared beliefs which contrast with those of other groups
C) contacts between members which confirm membership
D) all of the above
E) none of the above

Question 66

Clifford Shaw's work on the ecology of delinquency was influenced by the writings of:

A) Lombroso and Bonger
B) Darwin and Quetelet
C) Merton and Sutherland
D) Durkheim and Marx
E) Mark and Erwin

Question 67

Clifford Shaw researched the relationship between rapid city growth and deteriorating residential areas with high rates of delinquency and crime. He concluded that these areas were characterized by:

A) anomie
B) labeling
C) social disorganization
D) class conflict
E) despair and withdrawal

Question 68

Clifford Shaw's research led to a sociological emphasis upon the importance of __________ in explaining deviance:

A) poverty
B) learning
C) personality
D) mental health
E) situational factors

Question 69

Differential association is essentially a theory of:

A) structural strain
B) control
C) labeling
D) cultural transmission
E) class conflict

Question 70

In formulating his theory of differential association, Sutherland concluded that city areas once thought to be characterized by social disorganization were actually characterized by:

A) anomie
B) differential group organization
C) low degrees of socialization
D) a culture of poverty
E) a and c above

Question 71

According to differential association theory, individuals become criminal because of an excess of:

A) contacts with persons who violate the law
B) definitions favorable to the violation of the law
C) motivations neutralizing the law
D) general needs which predispose persons to violate the law
E) disjunctions toward the law

Question 72

The various versions of differential association theory are in agreement that:

A) much of deviant behavior is pathological
B) all deviant behavior is learned in groups
C) much of deviant behavior is normal
D) deviance results primarily from situational factors
E) none of the above

Question 73

Control theorists criticize social positivists for:

A) failing to incorporate cultural transmission into their theories
B) neglecting the role of structural strain
C) being overdeterministic and overpredictive
D) not recognizing the importance of interest group conflicts
E) assuming that humans are basically rational

Question 74

The notion that individuals will be deviant if they are allowed or permitted to be is central to:

A) anomie
B) differential association
C) social disorganization
D) control theory
E) labeling theory

Question 75

Attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief are elements of:

A) Sutherland's differential association theory
B) Merton's anomie theory
C) Hirschi's bonding theory
D) Shaw's social disorganization theory
E) none of the above

Question 76

Hirschi and Gottfredson reformulated bonding theory into a general theory of crime that places the cause of crime as:

A) weak self-control
B) poverty
C) poor child rearing practices
D) none of the above
E) a and c

Question 77

Wilson and Herrnstein and their integration of theory suggest:

A) criminals are born
B) criminals are made
C) criminals are made and born
D) none of the above