Psychological Theories of Crime 1. In-class assignment 2. Freud’s approach 3. Bandura’s theory

Gordon Allport (1897 – 1967)  Allport received his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1922 from Harvard  Social psychologist  His career was spent developing his theory, examining such social issues as prejudice, and developing personality traits

Personality Trait  To get an intuitive feel for what personality trait is, think of the last time you wanted to do something or become something because you really felt that doing or becoming that something would be expressive of the things about yourself that you believe to be most important

Personality Traits  Doing things in keeping with what you really are, that’s following personal traits, or personal dispositions  Unique, individual characteristics within a person

Personality Traits  A personal disposition produces various perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and actions  A person with the personal disposition “fear of communism” may equate Russians, liberals, professors, strikers, social activists, environmentalists, feminists, and so on  He may lump them all together and respond to any of them with a set of behaviors that express his fear: making speeches, writing letters, voting, arming himself, getting angry, etc.

TIME ORIENTATIONS  Future Paced - Goal Oriented, Desire and Idea Driven  Present Focused - Task Oriented, Critical and Need Driven  Past Absorbed - Event Oriented, Lesson and Memory Driven

Future Paced: Goal Oriented Desire and Idea Driven  Sometimes so focused on the future that misses things in the present or is unable to learn from and remember the past.  Can see, know or sense things that are coming and can see, know or sense problems before they arise  Can adapt to changes in plans  Can foresee future consequences of current actions.

Present Focused: Task Oriented Critical and Need Driven  Focus is on what is happening right now  Being in the present could mean things that happen within the next several weeks to only those things that are happening today depending on the width of the person’s Present Orientation  Might have difficulty adjusting to change because he can’t see it coming. He might have difficulty recalling what happened past his present time- frame.  Present oriented people could benefit from keeping a journal and a planning calendar

Past Absorbed: Event Oriented Lesson and Memory Driven  It is very difficult for them to see into the future except how it is formed or controlled by their past  They can either learn from the past or they can be stuck in the past  Holds onto past arguments or struggles, brings them to mind and mentions them frequently.  Remembers past good things and bad things  Can be frustrated by future and present paced people because they don’t understand how things were so can’t really understand how they are.

Past Absorbed, Present Oriented, and Future Oriented people

Furniture

Books/Art/Music

Crimes  Make a list of crimes for each of the dispositions  Provide a rationale for your choice

Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud ( )  Freud claimed that all human beings are born with certain instincts, i.e. with a natural tendency to satisfy their biologically determined needs for food, shelter and warmth  All humans have natural drives and urges repressed in the unconscious  All humans have criminal tendencies  Freud hypothesized that the most common element that contributed to criminal behavior was faulty identification by a child with her or his parents

The Oedipus Complex  According to Freud, a boy's close relation to his mother leads to a desire for complete union with her  A girl, on the other hand, who is similarly attached to the mother and thus caught up in a "homosexual" desire, directs her libido (love, sexual energy broadly construed) toward her father  This produces a triadic relationship regardless of one's sex, with the parent of the same sex cast in the role of a rival for the affections of the parent of the opposite sex.

The Unconscious  The unconscious is that part of the mind  Is constructed by the repression of that which is too painful to remain in consciousness  Sublimation -- the rechanneling of drives that cannot be given an acceptable outlet  In general we can say that the unconscious serves the theoretical function of making the relation between childhood experience and adult behavior intelligible

Ego, Id and Super-Ego  Id -- the biological, inherited, unconscious source of sexual drives, instincts, and irrational impulses  The ego is produced from the non-biological (social and familial) forces brought to bear on one's biological development and functions as an intermediary between the demands of the id and the external world  Super-ego (internalized rules placing limits on the subject's satisfactions and pleasures)

THE FREUDIAN APPROACH  The improperly socialized child may develop a personality disturbance that causes her or him to direct antisocial impulses inward or outward  The child who directs them outward becomes a criminal, and the child that directs them inward becomes a neurotic

Albert Bandura: Social Learning Theory (1965)  Albert Bandura is most famous for the Bobo doll experiment  He had children witness a model aggressively attacking a plastic clown called the Bobo doll  Children would watch a video where a model would aggressively hit a doll, punch the clown, shouting “sockeroo!”  She kicked it, sat on it, hit with a little hammer, shouting various aggressive phrases

Bobo doll experiment  Bandura showed his film to groups of children  They then were let out to play  In the play room were several observers with pens and clipboards in hand, a brand new bobo doll, and a few little hammers  A lot of little kids punched it and shouted “sockeroo,” kicked it, sat on it, hit it with the little hammers  Kids imitated the young lady in the film

 These children changed their behavior without being rewarded  It didn’t fit so well with standard behavioristic learning theory (based on reinforcement)  Bandura called this phenomenon observational learning or modeling, and his theory is usually called social learning theory  Observational learning, Retention, Motor reproduction Bobo doll experiment

 The model was rewarded or punished in a variety of ways  Kids were rewarded for their imitations  The model was changed to be less attractive or less prestigious  Disapproval a model’s action  When the children went into the other room, what should they find there but -- the live clown! They proceeded to punch him, kick him, hit him with little hammers Bandura did a large number of variations in the experiment:

Findings  Observational learning is also known as imitation or modeling. In this process, learning occurs when individuals observes and imitate others’ behavior  Albert Bandura reported that individuals that live in high crime rates areas are more likely to act violently than those who dwell in low-crime areas  This assumption is similar to Shaw and McKay’s theory of social disorganization