Psychological Perspective
Psychological Perspective
Psychological Perspective
A. Major Principles
1. individual is primary unit of analysis
2. personality is major motivational element within individual
3. crimes result from abnormal, dysfunctional, or inappropriate mental
processes within the personality
4. although criminal behavior is condemned by the social group, it may
be purposeful for the individual insofar as it addresses certain felt needs
5. normality is generally defined by social consensus
6. defective, or abnormal, mental processes may have a variety of causes,
including:
a. a diseased mind
b. inappropriate learning or improper conditioning
c. emulation of inappropriate role models
d. adjustment to inner conflicts
B. Demonology
1. individuals were thought to be possessed by spirits which caused good
or evil behavior
2. in Medieval Times people believed that the deviant behavior could not
be changed unless bad spirits were banished
3. trephining
a. method for banishing evil spirits
b. used a crude stone to cut a hole in the skull of a person thought to
be possessed by devils
c. cutting hole supposedly permitted evil spirits to escape
4. exorcism
a. treatment for ridding person of evil spirits
b. included
1. drinking horrible concoctions
2. praying
3. making strange noises
C. Psychiatric Criminology
1. Hervey M. Cleckley
a. The Mask of Sanity (1941)
b. fully developed concept of psychopathic personality
c. described psychopath as a “moral idiot,” or as one who does not
feel empathy with others, even though that person may be
fully cognizant of what is objectively happening around him/her
d. “poverty of affect”
1. central defining characteristic of a psychopath
2. inability to accurately imagine how others think and feel
e. Cleckley describes numerous characteristics of the psychopathic
personality some of which are:
1. superficial charm and “good intelligence”
2. absence of delusions, hallucinations, or other signs of
psychosis
3. absence of nervousness or psychoneurotic manifestations
4. inability to feel guilt or shame
5. unreliability
6. chronic lying
7. ongoing antisocial behavior
8. poor judgment and inability to learn from experience
9. self-centeredness and incapacity to love
10. unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations
11. an interpersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated sex life
12. failure to follow any life plan
f. psychopathy
1. a constellation of dysfunctional psychological processes as
opposed to specific behavioral manifestations
2. indicators of psychopathy appear early in life, often in the
teenage years
a. indicators include:
1. lying
2. fighting
3. stealing
4. vandalism
b. even earlier indicators may include:
1. bed-wetting
2. cruelty to animals
3. sleepwalking
4. fire setting
2. William Healy
a. use of case study in psychiatry
b. shifted emphasis from anatomical characteristics to psychological
and social elements
c. believed only way to find roots or causes of delinquent behavior was
to delve deeply into individual’s background especially emotional
development
d. found that delinquents had a higher frequency of personality defects
and disorders than non-delinquents
D. Psychoanalytic Criminology
1. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
a. credited with having made greatest contribution to development of
psychoanalytic theory
b. theory attempted to explain all behavior
c. unconscious
1. Freud and his colleagues introduced concept
2. humans have mental conflicts because of desires and energies
that are repressed in the unconscious
a. these urges, ideas, desires and instincts are basic but are
repressed because of society’s morality
b. dreams are an example of indirect expression of desires
d. saw original human nature as assertive and aggressive
1. it is not learned but is rooted deeply in early childhood
experiences
2. we all have criminal tendencies but during socialization process
most of us learn to control them by developing strong and
effective inner controls
e. psychoanalysis
1. Freud coined term in 1896
2. based an entire theory of human behavior on concept of
psychoanalysis
3. considers criminal behavior as maladaptive or the product of
inadequacies inherent in the offender’s personality
a. significant inadequacies may result in full-blown mental
illness, which in itself can be a direct cause of crime
f. psychotherapy
1. referred to in its early days as the “talking cure”
2. highlighted patient-therapist communication
3. the attempt to relieve patients of their mental disorders through
the application of psychoanalytic principles and techniques
g. personality
1. made up of three components:
a. id
1. based on pleasure principle
2. fundamental aspect of the personality from which
drives, wishes, urges, and desires emanate
3. fundamental drives include:
a. love
b. aggression
c. sex
4. id operates according to pleasure principle seeking full
and immediate gratification of its needs
5. id is largely unconscious
b. ego
1. based on reality principle
2. primarily charged with reality testing
3. primarily concerned with how objectives might be best
accomplished
4. tends to effect strategies for the individual that
maximize pleasure and minimize pain
5. inherently recognizes that it may be necessary to
delay gratification to achieve a more fulfilling long term
goal
c. superego
1. based on the ethical principle
2. much like a moral guide to right and wrong
3. assays the ego’s plan, dismissing some as morally
inappropriate while accepting others as ethically viable
4. “ego-ideal”
a. part of superego
b. symbolic representation of what society values
c. differs from conscience in that it is less forceful in
controlling behavior in the absence of the
likelihood of discovery
E. Modeling Theory
1. Laws of Imitation
a. Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904)
1. French social theorist
2. discounted biological theories of Lombroso
3. suggested it was possible to infer certain regularities or laws
that appeared to govern the social world
4. Tarde believed imitation was basis of any society
a. imitation is the tendency of people to pattern their
behavior after the behavior of others
b. Three Laws of Imitation
1. Law # 1
a. individuals in close intimate contact with one another tend
to imitate each other’s behavior
2. Law # 2
a. imitation moves from top down
b. examples
1. poor people tend to imitate wealthy people themselves
2. youngsters tend to emulate those older than
themselves
c. Law # 3
1. law of insertion
2. new acts and behaviors tend to either reinforce or
Replace old ones
3. examples
a. music of each generation replaces the music of
the one that preceded it
b. politics of young people eventually become the
politics of the nation