Human Behavior Final Exam

thinking critically about criminology

• essential to incorporate theory/research from relevant disciplines if it wants to be taken seriously

  • behavioral genetics

  • molecular genetics

  • neuroscience

  • biology

  • psychology

  • economics

  • computer science (AI)

• what should we do w/ our existing theories?

  • could evolve by incorporating relevant scholarship from other disciplines

• could become a discipline defined as biopsychosocial study of criminal/deviant behavior

  • this will require purposefully engaging in a reproduction crises of our own

• if criminology is engaged in serious replication crisis. it would likely result in some longstanding theories being discarded

  • other disciplines (ex: bio, psych, physics, etc.) attempt to falsify their hypothesis/have many “debunked” theories

• discussing two theories:

  • self-control theory (1990)

  • general strain theory (1992)

self-control theory

• first introduced by Gottfredson/Hirschi (1990)

  • chapter 9 in supplemental textbook

• Q: why don’t all humans commit crime?

• A: crime has long-term negative consequences

  • legal → fines, freedom

  • social → disapproval

  • physical → health, pain, mortality

  • religious → eternity/afterlife

• negative consequences strongly discourage antisocial behavior

  • but then why do some humans still commit crime?

• substantial individual variation (a spectrum) in the ability to calculate potential negative consequences of crime

  • “I’d kind of like to do it, but it isn’t worth it”

  • highest self-control: 70-year+ time horizon → thinking about it long-term

  • lowest self-control: 0-minute time horizon → thinking about it short-term

    • consequences do not exist in their mind’s eye

self-control theory major propositions

• self-control solely responsible for individual differences in criminality

  • explains all crime at all times

    • “general theory of crime”

  • every other variable discussed in criminology is irrelevant (spurious)

  • all humans are born w/ equally low levels of self-control and are rational pleasure maximizers

    • genetic effects on criminality are “minimal,” “near zero,” and “substantially trivial”

  • self-control is learned via effective parenting between ages 6-8

    • monitoring behavior

    • recognition of deviance

    • punishment of deviance

  • self-control relatively fixed (stable by age of 10

    • relative to other individuals

      • self-control will increase in absolute terms beyond 10, but it remains stable relative to other individuals (ex: in age bracket/percentile)

self-control theory methodology

• common methodological problem w/ virtually all social research on self-control is that studies do not account for shared genes when examining effect of parenting on self-control

  • high self-control parents are effective parents

    • but they also give their children 100% of their genes

    • is it genetic factors or effective parenting that’s causes their children to also have high self-control?

    • if genetic factors are not included in the research design, findings will overestimate impact of parenting on self-control