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• Attempting to explain the nature of human consciousness and conscious thought has been a central question in ontology.
• How that question is answered provides the foundation for various models of psychology.
• Psychology comes from the root: psyche.
• Psyche relates to the debates in western (Greek) philosophy attempting to describe how the mind operates as separate from the physical human body.

Early Psychological Ideas Linked to Crime

• A number of people attempted to use early psychological ideas to explain criminal behavior.
• Three of the best-known early theorists are:
  • Maudsley
  • Garofolo
  • Goring
• Maudsley (1867):
  • Mental degenerates - decreased self-control; inherited mental defects that lessened self-control.
• Garofolo (1885):
  • Psychological degenerates - lack of empathy, a sort of mental throwback who had no feelings of empathy
• Goring (1913):
  • Defective intelligence; found lower intelligence levels among a large number of English convicts compared to the general population.
• All are part of the biological school of inherited criminality discussed earlier.
• Their theories track with the basic theory that criminals inherit a defect from their parents.
• The defect is a defect in character (e.g. Maudsley and Garofolo) or mental ability (Goring).
• The defect in character/mental ability lessens an ability to resist criminal urges.
• Modern psychological theories trace to the work of Sigmund Freud, who spurred much of what is called psychology.
• Psychological theories are divided into three basic models of behavior:
  • Psychoanalytical
  • Behaviorism
  • Neuro-psychological
• A key difference between these three models is how they view the concept of the "mind", the psyche.
• All three models assume a person's environment affects his behavior.

Psychoanalytical

• Psychoanalytical psychology focuses on a “mentalistic” concept of the mind.
• The mind is a separate entity from the body (dualism: belief that self-consciousness exists separate from the biological body).
• A person's experiences in their environment affects the working of their mind which in turn affects their behavior.
• Psychoanalytical is not opposed to brain-based psychology and brain science.
• Psychologists utilize drug therapies for their patients, typically along with traditional talk therapies.
• Freud was trained in medicine and thought that the brain was the seat of the mind.

Behaviorism

• Behaviorism largely disregards the mind.
• Behaviorism approach assumes that there is a direct relationship between the environment and behavior.
• It disregards "the mind" because that is not a measurable concept, and instead focuses solely on things that can be measured.
• Behaviorism is based on rank empiricism (focuses on social/physical environment and stimuli confidently measured).
• Human consciousness is treated as a "black box" where stimuli is unconsciously matched.
• Stimuli matching: previous experiences of that stimuli and the subsequent history of reward or punishment (pleasure or pain).

Neuro-psychology

• Neuro-psychology attempts to explain behavior based on biology.
• It focuses on the brain as the motor that drives all human behavior and it rejects dualism.
• It focuses intensely on the mechanics of behavior and cognition as a physiological activity.
• This physiological activity is expressed via:
  • Bio-electric signals
  • Neuro-chemical signals
  • Physical changes in brain structure
• The brain's physical structure and operation is affected by:
  • Evolution, genetics, physical stimuli, learning

Psycho-analysis

• Freud was a physician.
• Focus:
  • Early childhood effects on personality
  • The Subconscious
• Freud is the founder of the psycho-analytic approach to psychology.
• He was convinced that personality and behavior was based on the brain, but science was not developed enough to explain how the brain functions.
• Experiences in childhood affect the development of personality.
• Healthy minds progress through several stages and develop balanced personality components.
• Freud’s theory has been applied to crime and deviance in terms of:
  • Imbalance in personality components
  • Dysfunction occurring during developmental stages
• Events that affected people's personalities occur during childhood, but those events are often repressed in the unconscious.
• A psycho-analyst uses “talk therapy" to help the patient "free associate” and succeed in drawing out the repressed memories that provide clues.

Three Personality Components

• ID - pleasure principle
• Biological urges, especially sex but also including others such as food and safety.
• The id is a person's inborn motivation to fulfill pleasures and survival instincts.
• Super-ego - conscience - socialization
• Essentially the set of rules learned from family, culture, society, etc.
• The norms learned through socialization that set limits on what can be done that contains or blocks the desires of the id.
• Ego - reality principle - mediates the id and superego
• The ego as acts a judge.
• It develops over time to balance the needs of the id and the restrictions of the super-ego.
• If healthy, it attempts to satisfy the id in socially acceptable manners.
• Criminal Behavior explanation based on the three components:
  • Very strong id
  • Underdeveloped /overdeveloped superego
  • Weak ego
• Very strong id: Person is self-centered and has less self-control
• Underdeveloped superego: Result in too little control over the normal passions of the id.
• Overdeveloped superego: Person has repressed their normal urges to an unhealthy point, creating outbursts of passion.
• Weak ego: Person recognizes desires and social rules, But, they have poor social judgment.

Stages of Personality Development

• Oral (0-1) - mouth oriented
• Anal (1-3) - oriented to bowel control
• Phallic (3-5) - knowledge of genitals
• Sexual Latency (6-13) – sexual feelings repressed
• Genital (13 +) – sexual maturation
• Each of these stages relate to a phase of childhood development and are potentially sexual in nature.
• Stages relate to sources of pleasure at different stages of development.
• Problems can occur during one of these stages of development that affects the person's unconscious personality forever.

Oral stage

• Associated with breast feeding and weaning; associated with pleasure gained through the mouth.
• Deviant tendencies: use of the mouth to commit crimes: con artists, oral drugs, cannibalism

Anal stage

• Associated with toilet training and learning how to control the bowels as well as urination as a result of controlling the bowels
• Deviant tendencies: theft Phallic - individuals become aware of their genitals as sources of pleasure. They begin to focus on their parents of the opposite sex.
• Deviant tendencies: use of weapons and crimes targeting the parent of the opposite sex.

Sexual Latency stage

• Sexual feelings are repressed– the stage where boys and girls engage in same sex activities.
• Deviant tendencies: single sex gangs and crimes directed against the opposite sex.
• Homosexuality was formerly thought to be related to this stage before being removed from the list of mental disorders.

Genital Stage

• Represents puberty.
• Deviant tendencies: use of prostitutes, cheating on a mate, bigamy, rape

Freudian Crime Theorists

• August Aichorn:
  • Wayward Youth (1925)
  • Undeveloped superego - due to too much or too little parental love
  • Criminal superego
• Healy and Bronner -New Lights on Delinquency (1936) -"Genuine Criminal" (no superego)
• Aichorn hypothesized that delinquency is a personality disease and the delinquent behaviors were merely symptoms of the underlying disease (mental conflict).
• Delinquent personality (or potential for delinquency): latent delinquency, and the delinquent actions become manifest delinquency.
• The delinquent personality was typically due to an underdeveloped or criminal superego.
• Healy and Bronner describe different types of criminals including the genuine criminal.
• A genuine criminal never developed a superego and so they live by id impulses alone.
• Psychoanalytic approach is a clinical approach that focuses on the experiences of individual people

Adaptive Unconscious

• Examples of current research ideas that utilize the concept of the subconscious
• Freudian psychology is considered suspect because of its lack of scientific rigor.
• Still considered an excellent observer of clinical ideas which affect psychological work today.
• Examples of the adaptive unconsciousness:
  • sizing up our world
  • perceiving danger
  • initiating action
  • setting our goals
• It is the unconscious that allows us to learn our native language with no conscious effort.
• It helps recognize patterns in our environments and develop reliable intuitions to guide our actions.

Criminal Personality Theory

• Yochelson and Samenow
  • Thinking Errors:
  • High self-esteem/superiority complex
  • Enjoys of risks
  • Overly Optimistic about outcomes
  • Chronic Lying
• Stanton Samenow focused on delinquent behavior.
• Samenow found certain prevalent "thinking errors" that lead to decisions for criminal conduct rather than against it.
• Patterns of personality predisposed them to criminal behavior:
  • Focus is on "thinking errors" (flawed predictions of future events and consequences).
  • Used in more successful rehabilitation counseling programs used in at-risk and criminal populations.
  • "Cognitive-behavioral therapies" attempt to teach better decision making skills and avoidance techniques.

Psychopathology Theory

• Schizophrenia:
  • Results in a person believing they see and hear things that are not there and they react to that perceived but not real environment.
• Psychopathy:
  • People without natural empathy for other people.
  • Lack of caring makes it easier for them to victimize others and more likely to become criminals.
• Social conditioning may have a huge effect on the direction that psychopathy takes

Cognitive Psychology

• Cognitive psychologists focus on information processing (how we observe, learn, think, and organize information).
• Cognitive psychology largely developed as a reaction to the over-simplicity of behaviorism.
• Most cognitive psychologists lean toward neuro-psychology as the ultimate resolution.
• Cognitive psychology uses mentalistic concepts and draws from all three major models of psychology.
• A behaviorist assumes that the same stimuli will have the same effect on different individuals where as cognitive psychology brings mentalistic concepts such as personality back into the inquiry.
• Individuals are different and that the same stimuli on different individuals will bring about different results.
• It tries to understand how minds work, so it attempts to model the processes.

Kohlberg's Theory of Ethical Development

• Kohlberg's theory is not a theory of crime, so much as it's a theory of anti-crime, conforming behavior and beyond.
• He essentially followed Piaget's theory of cognitive development in children and applied that to children's moral development.
• Higher order ethical thinking is achieved by some people.
• Higher levels of people apply ethical principles to their behaviors and the law.
• In Kohlberg's view, children need to be exposed to moral conflict and encouraged to see other people's views to develop higher order ethical abilities.

Intelligence & IQ

• All theories of crime are debated.
• IQ theories are linked to the hereditary theories of the feebleminded discussed earlier.
• Intelligence Quotient scores are based on standardized intelligence tests that focus on a single facet of intelligence.
• Tests focus on linear, mathematical, and spatial reasoning.
• They don't measure hypothesized concepts such as emotional intelligence or artistic intelligence.
• IQ scores are consistently correlated to criminal records and delinquent behavior.
• Correlation is modest, but consistent.
• IQ may be the single most consistent predictor variable in crime research and IQ may be the single most consistent predictor variable in crime research.
• It is widely believed that the IQ/Crime link is INDIRECT in causation.
• Low IQ causes problems in completing school, fulfilling unrealistic dreams, lowering control of immediate gratification, etc.
• Note there are criminals with high IQ's, and there is evidence that they're tend to commit more violent crimes
• IQ/Crime correlations are stronger when using official records for the crime measure than if you use self-report data.