Criminal psychology chapter 2

Flashcards covering key vocabulary from lecture notes on Origins of Criminal Behavior: Developmental Risk Factors

Cumulative Risk Model

The accumulation of risk factors in the absence of sufficient protective factors results in negative behavioral, emotional, and cognitive outcomes.

Developmental Cascade Model

Emphasizes the interaction among risk factors and their effect on outcomes over the course of development; early experiences can alter a child’s developmental trajectory.

Protective Factors

Characteristics or experiences that can shield children from serious antisocial behavior (e.g., warm and caring parents, high-quality education).

Risk Factors

Social, family, and psychological experiences that are believed to increase the probability that an individual will engage in persistent criminal behavior.

Poverty

A situation in which the basic resources to maintain an average standard of living within a specific geographic region are lacking.

Peer Rejection

A strong predictor of later involvement in antisocial behavior; social rejection by peers in elementary school grades presents a powerful risk factor for delinquency.

Parental Styles

Refer to parent–child interactions characterized by parental attitudes toward the child and the emotional climate of the parent–child relationship.

Parental Practices

Strategies employed by parents to achieve specific academic, social, or athletic goals across different contexts and situations.

Authoritarian Style

Parents try to shape, control, and evaluate the behavior of their children in accordance with some preestablished, absolute standard.

Permissive Style

Parents display tolerant, nonpunitive, accepting attitudes toward their children’s behavior, avoiding asserting authority or imposing social controls.

Authoritative Style

Parents try to direct their children’s activities in a rational, issue-oriented manner, with frequent decision-making exchanges and open communication.

Neglecting Style

Parents demonstrate detachment and very little involvement in their children’s life or activities.

Enmeshed Style

Parents see an unusually large number of minor behaviors as problematic and use ineffective, authoritarian strategies to deal with them.

Lax Style

Parents are not sufficiently attuned to what constitutes problematic or antisocial behavior in children, allowing much of it to slip by without disciplinary actions.

Parental Monitoring

Parents’ awareness of their child’s peer associates, free-time activities, and physical whereabouts when outside the home.

Attachment Theory

The early relationship between an infant and a caregiver largely determines the quality of social relationships later in life.

Lack of Empathy

Deficiencies in empathy have long been considered characteristic of persistently aggressive and antisocial individuals.

Affective Empathy

An emotional response characterized by feelings of concern for another and a desire to alleviate that person’s distress.

Cognitive Empathy

The ability to understand a person from his or her frame of reference rather than simply from one’s own point of view.

ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)

A neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention, impulsivity, and/or hyperactivity.

Self-Regulation

The ability to control one’s own behavior.

Conduct Disorder (CD)

A cluster of behaviors characterized by persistent misbehavior, including bullying, fighting, using or threatening weapon use, physical cruelty, destruction of property, deceitfulness, sexual assaults, and serious violations of rules.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)

Problems in self-control of emotions and behaviors; children are negative, hostile, vindictive, and defiant, more than is expected for their age.

Language Impairment

Problems expressing or understanding language that can increase the risk of behavior problems and antisocial behavior.

Psychometric Intelligence (PI)

A numerical score on an intelligence test used to measure cognitive abilities.