SOCI 362 (Huang) - Criminology - Exam 1 (pt.1)

T/F: generally speaking, all deviance/delinquency theories are tentative and speculative in nature (in other words, all deviance/delinquency theories imply probabilistic concepts of causality)

true

T/F: overall, modern criminologists and law enforcement authorities follow the paradigm/philosophy of conflict theory when defining the concept of crime/deviance

false: functionalism

T/F: the main factor that motivates criminologists to propose deviance/delinquency theories is to help people understand the root cause of crime/deviance. that means whenever criminologists decide to propose a new theory, they should incorporate as many ideas/concepts into their theoretical statements as possible.

false: appropriate number

T/F: in terms of research focus, biological theory is a macro theory.

false: micro

T/F: sociologically, the spurious relationship between independent and dependent variables can be found in macro theories (such as conflict theory) only.

false: both macro and micro

T/F: since theory can help criminologists postulate the relationship between/among observed phenomena, it is not unusual that criminologists discover that there is a casual relationship between 2 seemingly irrelevant phenomena

true

T/F: the law is enacted by the government. as a result, the misconducts/crimes involved by state agents usually will be overlooked if criminologists use the paradigm of functionalism to analyze delinquent/deviant acts.

true

T/F: in terms of classification paradigm, the underlying philosophy of individualistic explanations of crime/ deviance (such as rational choice theory) is left realism

false: right idealism

T/F: If A represents cause while B effect, then tautology can be diagramed as follows:

A ----> B -----> A -----> A

false: A/B and A/B

T/F: in criminology, the concept ecological fallacy means that we use macro theories to explain micro phenomena, or vice versa

true

T/F: in terms of classification, one of the structure theories in deviance/delinquency study is control theory.

false: process theories

T/F: in terms of classification, one of the process theories in deviance/ delinquency study is subculture theory.

false: structure theories

T/F: in terms of quality, some valid theories are unreliable

true

T/F: in terms of quality, some reliable theories are invalid.

true

T/F: in terms of testability, theological and philosophical theories usually cannot be tested empirically

true

T/F: in terms of quality, all scientific theories are valid.

false: only some

T/F: in terms of quality, no scientific theory is reliable.

false: only certain categories

T/F: in criminology and delinquency study, the philosophical foundation of psychological theory of crime is left idealism

false: right idealism

which of the following theory of crime/ delinquency emphasizes that the law will become a tool for the ruling class to maintain its dominant position?

a. functionalism

b. conflict

c. symbolic interactionism

d. social exchange

e. all of the above

b. conflict

in terms of definition, tautology means that someone uses _______ reasoning to support his/hers argument.

a. contrastive

b. comparative

c. circular

d. composite

e. centralized

c. circular

which of the following is a topic seldom discussed by criminologists/deviance researchers?

a. morality

b. the nature of serial killing

c. the root cause of voyeurism

d. the nature of domestic violence

e. the characteristics of child prostitution

a. morality

generally speaking, which topic in the following belongs to criminal justice, but not to criminology/deviance study?

a. victimology

b. the behavior of social control agencies

c. the etiology of crime

d. the defining characteristics of sadistic rape

e. the social context of juvenile crime

b. the behavior of social control agencies

suppose you want to propose a theory to explain violent crimes. in this case, your theory should not contain variables suitable only for explicating property offenses like ___

a. drug related murder

b. domestic violence

c. physical abuse

d. aggravated assault

e. embezzlement

e. embezzlement

suppose you want to propose a theory to explain white collar crimes. in this case, your theory should not contain those variables suitable for explicating survival-related crimes like_____

a. abuse of political power

b. shoplifting

c. insiders trading

d. ponzi scheme

e. environmental crime

b. shoplifting

which theoretical paradigm in the following focuses on societal reactions to crime/deviance, instead of crime per se?

a. functionalism

b. conflict

c. symbolic interactionism

d. structuration

e. phenomenology

c. symbolic interactionism

if the statements of a given theory can be verified by empirical data, then criminologists usually will argue that such a theory has

a. reliability

b. validity

c. predictability

d. duplicability

e. measurability

b. validity