Criminal Behavior: A Psychological Approach - Chapter 4 Study Notes

Chapter 4: Origins of Criminal Behavior: Learning and Situational Factors

Chapter Objectives

• Learning and cognitive factors as key elements in the development of delinquent and criminal behavior.

• Historical background of behaviorism and its contributions to understanding human learning of delinquent and criminal behavior.

• Definitions and descriptions of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning.

• Fundamental principles of social learning and its contributions to understanding antisocial behavior.

• Introduction to frustration-induced crime.

• The influence of the social situation, authority, and deindividuation in instigating criminal actions.

• Research on the bystander effect.

• Overview of recent research on moral development and moral disengagement.

Learning as a Process

• Behavior is learned (and unlearned) in three ways:

  1. Conditioning and Association

  2. Reinforcement

  3. Observation and Expectations

Historical Development

• The perspective that behavior is learned emerged in the early twentieth century.

• Pioneering work by John B. Watson in his 1913 publication "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" established psychology as the science of behavior.

• Supports the assertion that criminal behavior is learned rather than inherited or inevitable.

Conditioning and Association

• Associative learning:

  • Involves connecting a neutral stimulus (Conditioned Stimulus, CS) with a biologically significant stimulus (Unconditioned Stimulus, US) that naturally elicits a response (Unconditioned Response, UR).

  • The neutral stimulus eventually evokes a similar response (Conditioned Response, CR) on its own.

• Example: Aversion Therapy in Sex Offender Treatment

  • Utilizes nausea-inducing drugs paired with the sight of children to reduce pedophilic urges.

  • The drug (US) causes nausea (UR), which is then associated with the image of a child (CS), leading to nausea (CR) when the image is presented, ultimately weakening the criminal desire.

Reinforcement

• Environmental stimuli that affect behavior, where cognition may be present but not always relevant. Criminal behavior is learned and strengthened due to the reinforcements it produces.

• Based on B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning principles.

• Examples of Reinforcement:

  • Token Economies in correctional institutions.

  • Sentence Reduction Through Credit Earning.

  • Increased Surveillance After a Probation Violation.

• Types of Reinforcement:

  • Positive reinforcement: Increases desired behavior by introducing a pleasant stimulus following desired behavior.

  • Negative reinforcement: Increases desired behavior by removing an aversive stimulus following desired behavior.

  • Punishment: Decreases undesired behavior by introducing an aversive stimulus following undesired behavior.

  • Extinction: Eliminates undesired behavior by providing no reinforcement or punishment for undesired behavior.

Social Learning and Expectancy Theory

• Learning occurs via observation of the social environment (modeling and imitation), cognition, and belief in specific outcomes stemming from behaviors (expectancy).

• Example: Peer Influence

  • Deviant peers prompt delinquent behavior through modeling, normative regulation, and peer pressure.

  • Association with delinquent peers leads adolescents to adopt pro-delinquent attitudes and behaviors, imitating delinquent acts and receiving positive reinforcement.

Application of Social Learning: Differential Association Theory

• Proposed by Edwin Sutherland, emphasizes that criminal behavior is learned similarly to all behaviors.

• Critical factors:

  • Who the person associates with.

  • Duration, frequency, personal significance, and timing of these associations.

• Essential for influence is that deviant messages or values from “bad companions” outweigh conventional ones.

Differential Association-Reinforcement Theory

• Developed by Akers, incorporates reinforcement into differential association theory:

  • Involves being exposed to definitions favorable to crime, seeing crime modeled, and experiencing reinforcement (e.g., peer approval, material gain).

• Likelihood of crime increases due to:

  • Strong association with deviant peers.

  • Rewards outweighing punishments for deviance.

• Definitions:

  • Attitudes and meanings related to behavior; favorable or unfavorable toward violating the law.

Frustration-Induced Criminality

• When behavior towards a specific goal is blocked, resulting in increased arousal and a drive to mitigate it.

• Frustration: an internal aversive state that triggers arousal when responding in previously rewarding ways is hindered.

• Two offender types based on this theory:

  • Socialized Offender: Violates laws consistently due to learned behavioral patterns in their social environment.

  • Individual Offender: Engages in offending behavior after a series of frustrations and unmet needs.

Situational Instigators and Regulators of Criminal Behavior

• Concepts such as:

  • Fundamental Attribution Error: Cognitive bias wherein one overestimates internal factors in others' behaviors and underestimates external factors.

  • Victimology: Studies how a victim's characteristics and actions in a crime context can influence the criminal's behavior.

Deindividuation

• Defined as a complex series of events where individuals in large groups lose their sense of individuality and moral constraints, leading to behaviors aligned with crowd dynamics.

• Manifested in:

  • Crowds and mob behavior.

  • Online anonymity on social media.

  • Co-offending:

  • Over half of juvenile offenses involve co-offending, often escalating violence dependent on accomplices present.

Moral Disengagement

• Moral agency: The act of behaving morally.

• Moral disengagement: The process of detaching from one's moral principles; involves mechanisms such as:

  • Moral justification.

  • Euphemistic language.

  • Advantageous comparison.

  • Displacement of responsibility.

  • Diffusion of responsibility.

  • Distortion and denial of harmful effects.

  • Dehumanization.

Bandura's Strategies of Moral Disengagement

• Moral Justification: Justifying harmful actions for a perceived good (e.g., killing an abortion provider).

• Euphemistic Language: Using soft terms for harmful actions (e.g., collateral damage).

• Advantageous Comparison: Considering one's actions less harmful compared to others (e.g., burning a sex offender's house).

• Displacement of Responsibility: Blaming authority figures for actions (e.g., being ordered to keep false records).

• Diffusion of Responsibility: Group involvement in illegal acts (e.g., three juveniles robbing together).

• Disregard for Harm: Not recognizing harm caused (e.g., illegal dumping).

• Observers of Harmful Conduct: Bystanders not intervening or reporting.

• Dehumanization: Viewing victims as less than human (e.g., wartime enemy dehumanization).

Developmental and Life-Course Models of Crime

• Models emphasize population heterogeneity:

  • Gottfredson and Hirschi’s Self-Control Theory

  • Moffitt’s Dual Developmental Taxonomy

  • Sampson and Laub’s Age-Graded Theory of Informal Social Control

• Models emphasize state dependence:

  • Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential (ICAP) Theory

  • Social Development Model

  • Interactional Theory

  • Situational Action Theory

Age-Crime Relationships

• The Age Crime Curve illustrates the relationship between age and crime, noting:

  • A rapid increase in criminal activity in mid-to-late teens, a decrease in the early-to-mid 20s, and a gradual decline thereafter.

Population Heterogeneity vs. State Dependence

• Population Heterogeneity: Individuals exhibiting stable antisocial characteristics established early in life.

• State Dependence: Behaviors and experiences affect future offending, suggesting past criminal involvement shapes future likelihood of crime.

General Control Theory of Crime by Gottfredson and Hirschi

• Views all offending as the result of low self-control regardless of age.

• Argues that crime is a by-product of an individual's level of self-control.

• As individuals age, they tend to develop better self-control which accounts for reduce in crime rates.

Moffitt's Dual Developmental Taxonomy

• Proposed two distinct pathways leading to crime: Life-Course Persistent (LCP) and Adolescence-Limited (AL) offenders.

• LCP Offenders: Early onset, influenced by neuropsychological deficits and adverse environments; persist into adulthood with significant antisocial behaviors.

• AL Offenders: Exhibit behavior strictly during adolescence, often characterized by lower levels of criminal intensity; desist as they transition to adult roles.

Abstainers from Delinquent Behavior

• Some individuals completely abstain from delinquent activities, potentially due to protective environmental or personality traits.

• Types include adaptive abstainers and maladaptive abstainers, with unique motivations for not engaging in delinquency.

Adult-Onset Offenders

• Possible explanations:

  • Low-level chronic offending unnoticed during youth.

  • Situational influences or roles leading to criminal behavior in adulthood (e.g., financial crimes, intimate partner violence).

Empirical Findings from Developmental Trajectory Research

• Different groups of offenders identified over time; including desistors, chronic offenders, and abstainers.

• Notes the importance of situational factors and environmental influences in criminal behavior trajectories.

Age-Graded Theory of Informal Social Control by Sampson and Laub

• Crime is likely when ties to conventional society weaken; emphasizes importance of life-course milestones (turning points).

• The theory acknowledges both individual characteristics and societal influences in criminal behavior continuity.

Mechanisms of Desistance from Crime

• Institutional or structural turning points: significant life changes can lead to desistance (e.g., marriage, job gain).

• Agency: Engagement in purposeful choices that affect one's trajectory away from crime.

Critique of Developmental Models

• Many models attribute crime primarily to individual factors without adequately considering environmental interactions or the role of agency.

• The need for integrative approaches that include situational, cognitive, and social factors for a holistic understanding of crime behavior.