All Theories of Crime

Techniques of Neutralization

Denial, diffusion of responsibility, dehumanization, moral disengagement, arguing beneficial/moral ends, euphemistic language, etc.

Relative Deprivation

Psychological distance between what people perceive they have and what they feel they can realistically attain (sense of injustice?)

Cycle of Violence Hypothesis

People grow up to be abusive because they themselves were abused earlier in life (associations with coercion theory and social learning theory?)

Aggression

Intent to cause harm physically or psychologically or to destroy an object

Reactive Impulsive Aggression

Response to anger-inducing conditions or perceived threat. The aggressor’s goal is to make the victim suffer and/or to push off shame and humiliation

Aggressor experiences intense and disorganizing anger

Controlled Instrumental Aggression

More purposeful aggression with competition or desire to achieve something no matter what it takes

Violence

Destructive physical aggression intentionally directed at harming another person or thing. Needs to be nonessential, unwanted, harmful, and intentional

Frustration-aggression Hypothesis

Frustration increases the probability of aggression (overt or implicit) but so does aversive conditions (pain, sexual arousal, etc.)

Anger predisposes aggression but aggressive action depends on individual learning history, perception, and response type

Weapons Effect

Presence of aggressive stimuli increases the probability of an aggressive response

Cognitive-neoassociation Theory

In early stages, there is little mediating cognitive processes. Aversive events produce negative affect and lead to immediate fight/flight responses

In later stages, cognitive appraisals help us mediate and evaluate proper course of action which influences our emotional reactions after an initial automatic reaction

Excitation Transfer Theory

Physiological arousal dissipates slowly overtime. Pre-existing arousal and another anger-generating event increase the likelihood of aggression

Displaced Aggression Theory

Situations where an individual can’t aggress against the source of their anger but feels less constraint to aggress against innocent, non-provoking individuals

Cognitive Scripts Model

Social behavior is controlled largely by cognitive scripts learned and memorized through daily experiences. Scripts suggest what events will happen, how one should behave in response, and likely outcomes of that behavior

Hostile Attribution Bias

People prone to violence are more likely to interpret ambiguous actions as hostile and threatening.

Violent youth typically define social issues in a violent way, adapt hostile goals, seek few facts, create few alternative solutions, and anticipate fewer consequences.

Bias begins to develop in preschool but most outgrow it. Signs of bias in many chronic offenders

General Aggression Model

Aggression response depends on perception of the social environment, expectations about likelihood of outcomes, knowledge/beliefs about reactions, and degree of belief that they can respond effectively

I3 Theory

Organized structure for understanding factors and processes of aggression

Instigating triggers: discrete incidents that arouse predispositions to aggression

Impelling forces: increase likelihood of aggressive actions after trigger

Inhibiting forces: factors that increase likelihood of aggression being mitigated

Overt Aggression

Direct confrontation and high levels of emotion and anger. Generally decreases with age and begins early

Associated with lack of social cognitions for coming up with nonviolent solutions and hostile attribution bias

Covert Aggression

Concealment, dishonesty, sneaky behavior, and decreased emotion. Generally increases with age and evolves as a learned strategy to avoid punishment

Relies on cognitive capabilities (planning, deceitfulness, etc.)

Reactive Violence

“Hot-blooded” acts, tantrums, and vengeful hostility in response to provocation and lack of control due to high arousal.

Associated with frustration-aggression model, hostile attribution bias, abusive households, unpredictable environments, and greater problems in social adjustment.

Proactive Violence

Bullying, domination, and coercive “cold blooded” acts driven by expectation of reward. Associated with social learning theory and modeling aggressive role models.

Life-course Persistent Offender

Lifelong pattern of delinquency from a very early age, resistance to rehabilitation, missed social skills, negative cascades, and likely neurological issues

Gender Differences in Aggression

Possibly attributable to differences in socialization, culture, etc. Not attributable to biological differences.

Girls - covert and indirect, relational aggression, largely influenced by social and intimate relationships

Boys - overt and direct, more cumulative risk factors

Coercion Development Theory

A key predictor of early-onset offending is family (poor monitoring, disruptive family transitions, inconsistent discipline, neglectful parenting, etc.)

Coercive interactions between parent and child create a cycle of hostility. If the parent submits, coercion is likely to become the child’s interpersonal strategy

Early onset associated with higher social incompetence and higher likelihood of adult offending

Operant Conditioning

Learning to either make or withhold a response because of the consequence; probability of behavior is changed by change in consequence

Reinforcement (increases likelihood), punishment (decreases likelihood), extinction (no reaction to undesired behavior)

Behaviorists believe crime was learned and maintained through reinforcement

Differential Association-Reinforcement (DAR)

People learn to commit crime through interpersonal interactions (operant conditioning)

Strength of deviant behaviors depend on amount, frequency, and probability of reinforcement in the past (social and nonsocial)

Frustration-induced Criminality

Behavior becomes more vigorous when behavior directed at a goal is blocked (ex. rioting)

Socialized offender: product of learning, conditioning, modeling

Individual offender: product of long, intense frustrations from unmet needs

Fundamental Attribution Error

Human tendency to discount influence of situation and explain behavior by referring to someone’s personality instead (self-serving bias)

Deindividuation

Loss of sense of individuality in a crowd, removed self-imposed controls, and neutralized internalized moral restraints (collective behaviors, group disguises)

Moral Disengagement

Process of freeing oneself from own moral standards to act against them and/or reconstructing behaviors in their mind (ex. denial, dehumanization, etc.)

Explains how “good” people can do bad things under pressure

Behavior Genetics

Examines the role genes play in formation and development of behavior (genetic v. environmental influences)

Twin studies found that genes influence ~50% of population variation in antisocial behavior

Molecular Genetics

Focuses on genes at a molecular level (organization, function, heritability)

MAOA gene is crucial in preventing antisocial behavior

Autonomic Arousal Theory

Low levels of arousal predispose people to crime. Argues that fearlessness or fear-seeking behavior occurs

Temperament

Easy child: High rhythmicity, positive moods, high approachability, high adaptability, low intensity of mood expression

Difficult child: irregular rhythmicity, negative mood, low approachability, low adaptability, high intensity of mood expression (most associated with antisocial behavior)

Slow-to-warm-up child: high rhythmicity, negative mood, low approachability, slow adaptability, low intensity of mood expression

Differential Sensitivity Model

Suggests some people are just more sensitive to their environment, not necessarily vulnerable to only negative influences and can exceed in a positive environment

Diathesis-stress Model

If the combination of predisposition and stress exceed the threshold, a disorder will develop

Explores how biological traits interact with environmental influences to produce disorders

Risk Factors

Established predictors of undesirable outcomes

Protective Factors

Characteristics that shield children from antisocial behavior

Developmental Cascades Model

Assumes that development in one domain shapes development in others (“snowballing”)

Interactive approach in assessing effects of risks and predicting negative and positive outcomes

Emphasizes well-timed and targeted interventions to promote positive cascades

Resilience

Successful coping with or overcoming risk and adversity, development of competence despite severe distress (ability to adapt successfully!)

Protective factor that resists influence of risk factors

Parenting Styles

Authoritarian: parent attempts to shape and control children in line with a standard, expects high level of obedience

Permissive: parent exerts no control, is non-punitive, avoids taking on authoritative role, and places few restrictions

Authoritative: parent is direct, rational, issue-oriented, and communicates openly (“wise”)

Neglecting: parent is detached, unengaged, and minimally responsive (one of the strongest risk factors for delinquency)

Attachment Theory

Early relationships between infant and caregiver largely determine the quality of social relationships later in life

Secure attachment: foundation for healthy relationships and safe exploration of new environments

Insecure avoidant: caretaker withdraws when infant expresses need so infant minimizes expressions outwardly to not overwhelm the caretaker, leads to emotional unavailability

Insecure anxious/ambivalent: results from inconsistent caretaking, expressions of need are increased with hope that proper care will occur, leads to anxiety and enmeshment

Family Risk Factors

Poverty (and poverty cofactors), parenting styles, attachment styles, parental psychopathology, sibling influences

Psychological Risk Factors

Peer rejection/influence, poor-quality childcare, academic failure, lack of empathy, animal cruelty, language deficiencies, IQ, ADHD, conduct disorder, ODD

Just-World Hypothesis

Things happen for a reason (“get what you deserve”)

Personal just-world: “I usually get what I deserve”, helpful in coping

General just-world: “less compassion for others, derogation of crime victims

Learning Perspective

Humans are born as a blank slate and are subject to learning experiences

Social learning theory: learning from watching others (modeling)

Differential association theory: crime occurs due to learning behaviors and values from others that are deviant