Chapter 5: Trait Theories
What do the biochemical, neurological, and genetic views on crime causation all share?
The belief that criminal behavior comprises both biological and sociological elements.
Attachment Theory
The belief that the ability to form attachments—that is, emotionally bond to another person—has important lasting psychological implications that follow people across the life span.
Somatotype
A system developed for categorizing people on the basis of their body build.
Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ)
A test that allows researchers to assess such personality traits as control, aggression, alienation, and well-being. Evaluations using this scale indicate that adolescent offenders who are crime prone maintain negative emotionality, a tendency to experience aversive affective states such as anger, anxiety, and irritability.
Schizophrenia
A type of psychosis often marked by bizarre behavior, hallucinations, loss of thought control, and inappropriate emotional responses. Schizophrenic types include catatonic, which characteristically involves impairment of motor activity; paranoid, which is characterized by delusions of persecution; and hebephrenic, which is characterized by immature behavior and giddiness.
Biophobia
A view held by sociologists that no serious consideration should be given to biological factors when attempting to understand human nature.
Arousal Theory
A view of crime suggesting that people who have a high arousal level seek powerful stimuli in their environment to maintain an optimal level of arousal. These stimuli are often associated with violence and aggression. Sociopaths may need greater than average stimulation to bring them up to comfortable levels of living; this need explains their criminal tendencies.
Minnesota Multiphastic Personality Investory (MMPI)
A widely used psychological test that has subscales designed to measure many different personality traits, including psychopathic deviation (Pd scale), schizophrenia (Sc scale), and hypomania (Ma scale).
Pleasure Principle
According to Freud, a theory in which id-dominated people are driven to increase their personal pleasure without regard to consequences.
Reality Principle
According to Freud, the ability to learn about the consequences of one's actions through experience.
Thanatos
According to Freud, the instinctual drive toward aggression and violence.
Atavistic Anomalies
According to Lombroso, the physical characteristics that distinguish born criminals from the general population and are throwbacks to animals or primitive people.
Reciprocal Altruism
According to sociobiology, acts that are outwardly designed to help others but that have at their core benefits to the self.
Inheritance School
Advocates of this view trace the activities of several generations of families believed to have an especially large number of criminal members.
Differential Susceptibility Model
The belief that there is an indirect association between traits and crime.
Androgens
Male sex hormones.
Moral Development
The way people morally represent and reason about the world.
What secondary purpose can tests such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) serve?
They can be used to determine whether an individual warrants counseling to prevent criminality.
Defective Intelligence
Traits such as feeblemindedness, epilepsy, insanity, and defective social instinct, which Goring believed had a significant relationship to criminal behavior.
Secondary Prevention Programs
Treatment programs aimed at helping offenders after they have been identified.
Primary Prevention Programs
Treatment programs that seek to correct or remedy personal problems before they manifest themselves as crime.
Oedipus Complex
A stage of development when males begin to have sexual feelings for their mothers.
Biological Determinism
A belief that criminogenic traits can be acquired through indirect heredity from a degenerate family whose members suffered from such ills as insanity, syphilis, and alcoholism, or through direct heredity—being related to a family of criminals.
Information Processing
A branch of cognitive psychology that focuses on the way people process, store, encode, retrieve, and manipulate information to make decisions and solve problems.
Humanistic Psychology
A branch of psychology that stresses self-awareness and "getting in touch with feelings."
Under the attachment theory, in which case would a person be susceptible to criminal behavior later in life?
A child born to indifferent, non-caring parents.
Hypoglycemia
A condition that occurs when glucose (sugar) levels in the blood fall below the necessary level for normal and efficient brain functioning.
Alexithymia
A deficit in emotional cognition that prevents people from being aware of their feelings or being able to understand or talk about their thoughts and emotions; they seem robotic and emotionally dead.
Latency
A developmental stage that begins at age 6. During this period, feelings of sexuality are repressed until the genital stage begins at puberty; this marks the beginning of adult sexuality.
Electroencephalograph (EEG)
A device that can record the electronic impulses given off by the brain, commonly called brain waves.
Learning Disability (LD)
A disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using spoken or written languages.
California Personality Inventory (CPI)
A frequently administered personality test used to distinguish deviant groups from nondeviant groups.
Psychosis
A mental state in which the perception of reality is distorted. People experiencing psychosis hallucinate, have paranoid or delusional beliefs, change personality, exhibit disorganized thinking, and engage in unusual or bizarre behavior.
Neocortex
A part of the human brain; the left side of the neocortex controls sympathetic feelings toward others.
Conduct Disorder (CD)
A pattern of repetitive behavior in which the rights of others or social norms are violated.
Intelligence
A person's ability to reason, think abstractly, understand complex ideas, learn from experience, and discover solutions to complex problems.
Psychopathic Personality
A personality characterized by a lack of warmth and feeling, inappropriate behavior responses, and an inability to learn from experience. Some psychologists view psychopathy as a result of childhood trauma; others see it as a result of biological abnormality.
Cerebral Allergies
A physical condition that causes brain malfunction due to exposure to some environmental or biochemical irritant.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
A psychological disorder in which a child shows developmentally inappropriate impulsivity, hyperactivity, and lack of attention.
Latent Delinquency
A psychological predisposition to commit antisocial acts because of an id-dominated personality that renders an individual incapable of controlling impulsive, pleasure-seeking drives.
Identity Crisis
A psychological state, identified by Erikson, in which youth face inner turmoil and uncertainty about life roles.
Sadistic Personality Disorder
A repeating pattern of cruel and demeaning behavior. People suffering from this type of extreme personality disturbance seem prone to engage in serious violent attacks, including homicides motivated by sexual sadism.
Which of the following could serve to dispel evolutionary theory in explaining criminality?
A significant decrease over a generation in the offspring of criminals engaging in criminal activity.
Electra Complex
A stage of development when girls begin to have sexual feelings for their fathers.
Neuroallergies
Allergies that affect the nervous system and cause the allergic person to produce enzymes that attack wholesome foods as if they were dangerous to the body. They may also cause swelling of the brain and produce sensitivity in the central nervous system—conditions that are linked to mental, emotional, and behavioral problems.
Minimal Brain Dysfunction (MBD)
An abruptly appearing, maladaptive behavior that interrupts an individual's lifestyle and life flow. In its most serious form, MBD has been linked to serious antisocial acts, an imbalance in the urge-control mechanisms of the brain, and chemical abnormality.
Fixated
An adult who exhibits behavior traits characteristic of those encountered during infantile sexual development.
Biosocial Theory
An approach to criminology that focuses on the interaction between biological and social factors as they relate to crime.
Bipolar Disorder
An emotional disturbance in which moods alternate between periods of wild elation and deep depression.
How can unstable households influence and encourage criminality? Explain and provide examples.
An unstable household can influence and encourage criminality in many ways. In some ways criminal acts can be a cry for help, children who have been neglected can use criminal actions to get a rise out of uncaring parents. Another way an unstable household can be negative is the affected child can become disassociated with their emotions like the example shown in the video assignment. These are just some of the ways an unstable household can influence criminality.
Chemical Restraints or Chemical Straitjackets
Antipsychotic drugs such as Haldol, Stelazine, Prolixin, and Risperdal, which help control levels of neurotransmitters (such as serotonin/dopamine), that are used to treat violence-prone people.
Disorders
Any type of psychological problems (formerly labeled neuroses or psychoses), such as anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and conduct disorders.
The individual vulnerability model:
Assumes that some people, more than others, are vulnerable to crime from birth.
Individual Vulnerability Model
Assumes there is a direct link between traits and crime; some people are vulnerable to crime from birth.
Which of the following could encourage criminality in an individual, under the psycho-dynamic theory?
Being emotionally traumatized by the bitter divorce of parents.
Psychoanalytic or Psychodynamic Perspective
Branch of psychology holding that the human personality is controlled by unconscious mental processes developed early in childhood.
How does behavior modeling encourage criminality?
By observing aggression from various sources and mimicking it.
Despite biological criminology having been discarded as an acceptable theory, why do sociobiologists still argue that biology plays a role in determining criminality?
Certain biological traits, when acted upon by environmental conditions, do encourage criminality.
McVeigh's (video case) misperception of and irrational response to the U.S. government in the aftermath of Waco can be best explained by ______.
Cognitive theory.
Tertiary Prevention Programs
Crime control and prevention programs that may be a requirement of a probation order, part of a diversionary sentence, or aftercare at the end of a prison sentence.
Criminal Anthropology
Early efforts to discover a biological basis of crime through measurement of physical and mental processes.
In which situation would a child be more likely to develop a psychopathic personality?
Failing to form a strong emotional bond with parents.
Which of the following behaviors is usually observed in those with an antisocial personality?
Failure to conform to social norms.
Contagion Effect
Genetic predispositions and early experiences make some people, including twins, susceptible to deviant behavior, which is transmitted by the presence of antisocial siblings in the household.
Due to behavior modeling, which of the following would play a primary role in encouraging an adolescent to engage in aggression?
Growing up in a household where domestic violence between parents is frequent.
In what way can it be said that McVeigh (video case) suffered from an identity crisis?
He became lost and without a purpose after leaving the military.
What did McVeigh's (video case) rationale for having his remains cremated reveal?
He knew his actions were not supported by mainstream society.
What is the fundamental basis for the direct genetic view of crime?
Hereditary traits such as genes in families are linked to criminality.
Which of the following can be considered an antisocial personality trait of McVeigh?(video case)
His lack of remorse for the children he killed in the bombing, and his rationalizing their deaths.
Oral Stage
In Freud's schema, the first year of life, when a child attains pleasure by sucking and biting.
Anal Stage
In Freud's schema, the second and third years of life, when the focus of sexual attention is on the elimination of bodily wastes.
Phallic Stage
In Freud's schema, the third year, when children focus their attention on their genitals.
Superego
Incorporation within the personality of the moral standards and values of parents, community, and significant others.
Which of the following could conceivably serve to reduce crime, under social learning theory?
Limiting graphic portrayals of violence in movies and video games.
Arousal theory holds that some individuals:
May seek aggression and violence to bring them up to comfortable stimulation levels.
Antisocial behavior from ADHD or CD that leads to crime would be primarily considered a:
Neurological factor.
Conscience
One of two parts of the superego; it distinguishes between what is right and wrong.
Ego Ideal
Part of the superego; directs the individual into morally acceptable and responsible behaviors, which may not be pleasurable.
Psychopath
People who have an antisocial personality that is a product of a defect or aberration within themselves.
Inferiority Complex
People who have feelings of inferiority and compensate for them with a drive for superiority.
Are people with personality disorders predisposed to criminality? Why and why not?
People with personality disorders are not predisposed to criminality. Although a personality disorder combine with other biological and social factors can lead to criminality simply having a personality disorder does not mean someone will be a criminal. There are many kinds of personality disorders, so it can vary which disorders are more likely associated with criminality.
Sociopath
Personality disorder characterized by superficial charm and glibness, a lack of empathy for others, amoral conduct, and lack of shame, guilt, or remorse for antisocial behavior. The term may be used interchangeably with psychopath, but both terms have been replaced by antisocial behavior disorder.
Behavior Modeling
Process of learning behavior (notably aggression) by observing others. Aggressive models may be parents, criminals in the neighborhood, or characters on television or in video games and movies.
Which of the following behaviors is usually observed in those with an antisocial personality?
Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others.
What element of McVeigh's (video case) early life may have triggered problems for him that would ultimately manifest in violence?
The bitter divorce of his parents.
Behaviorism
The branch of psychology concerned with the study of observable behavior rather than unconscious motives. It focuses on the relationship between particular stimuli and people's responses to them.
Positivism
The branch of social science that uses the scientific method of the natural sciences and suggests that human behavior is a product of social, biological, psychological, or economic forces.
Eros
The instinct to preserve and create life, a basic human drive present at birth.
Ego
The part of the personality, developed in early childhood, that helps control the id and keep people's actions within the boundaries of social convention.
Id
The primitive part of people's mental makeup, present at birth, that represents unconscious biological drives for food, sex, and other life-sustaining necessities. The id seeks instant gratification without concern for the rights of others.
Testosterone
The principal male steroid hormone. Testosterone levels decline during the life cycle and may explain why violence rates diminish over time.
Personality
The reasonably stable patterns of behavior, including thoughts and emotions, that distinguish one person from another.
Sociobiology
The scientific study of the determinants of social behavior, based on the view that such behavior is influenced by both the individual's genetic makeup and interactions with the environment.
Premenstrual System (PMS)
The stereotype that several days prior to and during menstruation females are beset by irritability and poor judgment as a result of hormonal changes.
Nuerophysiology
The study of brain activity.
Cognitive Theory
The study of the perception of reality and of the mental processes required to understand the world in which we live.
Trait Theory
The view that criminality is a product of abnormal biological and/or psychological traits.
Social Learning
The view that human behavior is modeled through observation of human social interactions, either directly from observing those who are close and from intimate contact or indirectly through the media. Interactions that are rewarded are copied, while those that are punished are avoided.
Nature Theory
The view that intelligence is largely determined genetically and that low intelligence is linked to criminal behavior.
Nurture Theory
The view that intelligence is not inherited but is largely a product of environment. Low IQ scores do not cause crime but may result from the same environmental factors.
