Access PsychologyHannah Butlerhbutler@stvincents.co.uk

Discuss on your tables......• CRIME IS A RESULT OF EVIL PEOPLE • CRIME IS PREVENTABLE • CRIME ALWAYS HAS A PERPETRATOR AND A

VICTIM• CRIME IS PERFORMING IMMORAL ACTIONS • CRIME IS SOMETHING OTHER PEOPLE DO• CRIME IS A RESULT OF THE UNFAIR SOCIETY

THAT WE LIVE IN • CRIME IS DEPENDANT ON YOUR VIEWPOINT, I.E.

THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE DEFINITION 

The Biological approach to Psychology

•The biological perspective is a way of looking at psychological topics by studying the physical basis for animal and human behaviour.

• It is one of the major perspectives in psychology, and involves such things as studying the immune system, nervous system and genetics.

•This field of psychology is often referred to as biopsychology or physiological psychology.

•The biological perspective is relevant to the study of psychology in three ways:

•1. Comparative method: different species of animal can be studied and compared.

•This can help in the search to understand human behaviour.

•2. Physiology: how the nervous system and hormones work, how the brain functions, how changes in structure and/or function can affect behaviour.

•For example, we could ask how prescribed drugs to treat depression affect behaviour through their interaction with the nervous system.

•3. Investigation of inheritance: what an animal inherits from its parents, mechanisms of inheritance (genetics).

•For example, we might want to know whether high intelligence is inherited from one generation to the next.

•Each of these biological aspects, the comparative, the physiological and the genetic, can help explain human behaviour.

Basic assumptions

•Psychology should be seen as a science, to be studied in a scientific manner (usually in a laboratory).

•Behaviour can be largely explained in terms of biology (e.g. genes/hormones).

•Human genes have evolved over millions of years to adapt behaviour to the environment. Therefore, most behaviour will have an adaptive / evolutionary purpose.

Biological explanations of crime

Biological explanations of crime

•The common assumptions of the biological theories of crime are that physical attributes can lead an individual to criminal activities.

•Generally, the thought was that certain physical attributes were passed down from parent to child, making the child more at risk of committing crimes.

What does a criminal look like?

Draw a picture of what you think a typical criminal looks like

Cesare Lombroso-the father of criminology

•Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was an Italian criminologist and physician, who founded the Italian School of Positivist Criminology.•He rejected the classical school of criminology.•Came up with a theory which stated that criminality was inherited, and that someone "born criminal" could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic (throwback to an earlier stage of human evolution)

• In 1876, Lombroso suggested that 40% of criminals were ‘born criminals’ and it was possible to identify them from their skull and facial features.

• He collected the physical measurements from criminals and non-criminals and conducted post-mortem examinations, concluding that criminals differed from non-criminals in their appearance.

•Through his work, he claimed that criminals had the following physical characteristics:

• a head that was different in size and shape to the heads of those of the same race

• asymmetry of the face• eye defects• large jaws and cheekbones• ears that were either very small or that

stood out from the head like the ears of a chimpanzee

• twisted, upturned or flattened noses in thieves

• aquiline or beak-like noses in murderers• swollen nostrils and a pointed tip to the

nose• fleshy, swollen and petruding lips• cheeks that look like they have pouches in

them, like a hamster

• a cleft palate• a chin that was either receding,

excessively long or short and flat (as in apes)

• abnormal teeth• lots of wrinkles• hair that was more like the hair of the

opposite sex• He also suggested that criminals had

excessively long arms. These features he concluded suggested that criminals were reverting to a primitive type of man with physical features similar to those of apes.

• The male with five or more of these physical anomalies is marked as a born criminal

•Lombroso also maintained that criminals had less sensibility to pain and touch; more acute sight; a lack of moral sense, including an absence of remorse; more vanity, impulsiveness, vindictiveness, and cruelty; and other manifestations, such as the excessive use of tattooing. •Most of the “born criminals”

had them•Obscene nature of their depictions and messages •Tattoos stood as evidence of both insensitive to physical pain and immorality

Lombrosso and the female offender

•Lombrosso also tried to identify characteristics of female criminals, but concluded that female criminals were rare and suggested that they had not ‘degenerated’ in the same way as men because they had ‘evolved less than men due to the inactive nature of their lives’.

•Women are less evolved: naturally vengeful and jealous, their moral sensibilities are deficient, less sensitive to pain than men

•Natural selection is the reason for existence of a greater number of male than female born criminals

•Men are less likely to breed with physically deformed women

• Women have less chances to transmit their genes

• Degenerative traits in women would be less likely than such traits in men to survive over time

A review of the work of Cesare Lombroso

Evaluation of Lombroso• Theory overlooks the bright and handsome

criminals• Theory ignores those who are ugly and live lives

of productive and cooperative labor• Theory does not look at the variations over time

in crime rates. Since genes change very slowly, there should be a steady rate of crime over the centuries. That is not the case. Crime rates vary dramatically.

•He was studying the very poor - people whose physical development had been affected by poverty, poor nutrition

•Not everyone who breaks the law ends up in prison

•This type of theorising neglects the idea that there is a "grey area" of criminality - people who commit crimes but who are not caught and therefore not imprisoned.

William Sheldon (1949) "The Varieties of Delinquent Youth"

There is a strong correlation

between body morphology (shape) and

criminal behaviour in teenagers

William Herbert Sheldon  (1898 -1977) 

An American psychologist.He created the field of somatotype and constitutional psychology that tried to correlate body types with behaviour, intelligence and social hierarchy. He classified people into three categories:

•Endomorphic•Mesomorphic•Ectomorphic

Endomorphic body type

The Endomorph is physically quite 'round', and is typified as the 'barrel of fun‘ person. They tend to have:

•Wide hips and narrow shoulders, which makes them rather pear-shaped.

•Quite a lot of fat spread across the body, including upper arms and thighs.

•They have quite slim ankles and wrists, which only serves to accentuate the fatter other parts.

Endomorphic body type

Psychologically, the endomorph is:•Sociable•Fun-loving•Love of food•Tolerant•Even-tempered•Good humoured•Relaxed•With a love of comfort•And has a need for affection

Ectomorphic boy type

The Ectomorph is an opposite of the Endomorph. Physically, they tend to have:

•Narrow shoulders and hips•A thin and narrow face, with a high forehead•A thin and narrow chest and abdomen•Thin legs and arms•Very little body fat•Even though they may eat as much as the

endomorph, they never seem to put on weight

Ectomorphic body type

Psychologically they are:•Self-conscious•Private• Introverted• Inhibited•Socially anxious•Artistic• Intense•Emotionally restrained•Thoughtful

Mesomorphic body type• The mesomorph is somewhere between the

round endomorph and the thin ectomorph. Physically, they have the more 'desirable' body, and have:

• Large head, broad shoulders and narrow waist (wedge-shaped).

• Muscular body, with strong forearms and thighs

• Very little body fat• They are generally considered as 'well-

proportioned'.

Mesomorphic body type

Psychologically, they are:•Adventurous•Courageous• Indifferent to what others think or want•Assertive/bold•Zest for physical activity•Competitive•With a desire for power/dominance•And a love of risk/chance

•Sheldon compiled his study by comparing 400 boys in a residential rehabilitation home.

•He gathered extensive family backgrounds on each and also monitored their growth for 8 years.

•He found that the Mesomorphs pose the greatest threat of becoming delinquents and later criminals.

Convicts were most likely to mesomorphic, and least

likely to be ectomorphic

•A later study compiled in the 1960s backed up Sheldon’s theory.

•Herrnstein and Wilson found 60% of the delinquent population to be mesomorphs and 30% endomorphs.

• In a similar vein others have studied physical attractiveness and crime (Corsini) and found a correlation.

•However, they could not detect whether physical unattractiveness played a part in the initial choice to become deviant or whether the juvenile court system singled out unattractive children from others by adjudicating them delinquent more frequently.

•Sheldon's theories enjoyed a vogue as the "pop-psych flavour of the month" through the 1950s.

•Modern scientists, however, generally with occasional exceptions) dismiss his claims as outdated, if not outright ”quackery”

Hans Eysenck (1916-1997)-personality and crime

•Born in Germany-hated the Nazis.•Moved to UK in the 1930s.•Most well known for his theory on personality and crime.

His theory proposed that criminal behaviour is the result of an interaction between certain environmental conditions and features of the nervous system.

Type theory• Eysenck believed that there are different

personality types.

• His theory is therefore described as a type theory. For each personality type there are associated traits.

Eysenck believed that personality is defined along 3 strands:

•Neuroticism (N)

•Psychoticism(P)

•Extraversion (E)

Extroverts

Open and often

talkative

Compare their own opinions with the opinions of others

Interested in new people

Say what they thinkLike action and

initiative

Easily make new friends or adapt to a

new group

Easily break unwanted relations

Are interested in

their own thoughts and

feelings

Need to have own territory

Often appear reserved, quiet and thoughtful

Usually do not have

many friends

Have difficulties in making new

contacts

Like concentration and quiet

Do not like the

unexpected INTROVERTS

Neurotics

Nature full of anxiety

Worry a lot

Feel guilty often

Highly emotional

Rapid response to

fear

May have low self esteem

May be tense or irritable

Extroversion

•Eysenck’s studies showed that the typical extravert tends to lose his/her temper quickly, becoming aggressive and unreliable.

•He then believed that extraverts need a higher level of excitement and stimulation, known as “arousal theory.”

•The need for high amounts of stimulation then lead to more likely encounters with the law.

•“They enjoy pranks and practical jokes and find challenge in opportunities to do the unconventional, or even to engage in antisocial behaviour”

•The physiological bases of extraversion are related to the Reticular Activating System (RAS).

•The RAS arouses the cerebral cortex and keeps it alert to incoming stimuli.

Cerebral cortex•The Cerebral cortex is the outermost sheet of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain.•It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness thought, language, and consciousness. 

Neuroticism• The base of neuroticism is frequently linked to

the emotional area of the brain-this dimension reacts to how one successfully deals with stressful events.

• Whereas the extraversion centre of the brain is linked to the central nervous system, neuroticism relates to the autonomic nervous system.

• Neurotic individuals are believed to achieve an emotional level quickly and then remain at that level for a longer amount of time than non‐neurotic individuals.

Autonomic nervous system

•Autonomic nervous system (ANS) is the part of our main nervous system that acts as a control system, functioning largely below the level of consciousness, and controls visceral (internal) functions. 

•The ANS effects heart-rate, digestion, respiratory rate, salivation, perspiration, pupil dilation, urination and sexual arousal.

Psychotism

•Eysenck used the word psychoticism as a word to identify behaviours that are not explained by neuroticism and extraversion.

•Eysenck used his research to categorize individuals who exhibited cold, cruel, unemotional, and insensitive characteristics, not the clinical definition of psychotic which means out of touch with reality.

According to Eysenck

•Extroverts are under aroused,•Need stimulation•Less likely to be effected by negative

outcomes of their behaviour i.e. punishment.

•More likely to shrug shoulders at disapproval

•Introverts take punishment to heart.

According to Eysenck

•Extroverts enjoy the ‘thrill’ of a crime as will take more risks. Joyriding a good example.

To summarise....

•To sum up the Eysenck’s Theory of Criminality, offenders as a whole will demonstrate low levels of extraversion (cortical arousal), high levels of neuroticism (autonomic arousal), and are more tough‐minded in the psychotic sense

Homework

•On moodle....•Modern biological explanation of

criminality news article