Download Piche 2330 Learning Theories

Psychological Explanations
of Crime
Learning Criminal Behaviour
Psychodynamic Theories
Humans are engaged in pleasure seeking
behaviors and destructive impulses
 Impulses are not regulated due to traumatic
childhood experiences
 Inner drives, traumatic situations, defenses
 5 levels of personality development (oral, anal,
phallic, latent, genital)

Psychodynamic theories
Id = present at birth; unconscious, primitive,
instinctual drives PLEASURE PRINCIPLE, no
consideration of consequences
 Ego = developed to mediate primal needs with
society’s demands, REALITY, represses primal
needs until a suitable time arises to express it
 Superego = internalization of group standards,
morality, overseeing our choices CONSCIENCE

Psychodynamic theories
Crime is explained by inner impulses
 impulses are not adequately controlled
harsh, weak or deviant superego
Learned Behaviour
 Assumptions:
people are not born criminal
n it is not due to brain injury
n neurochemistry or hormonal imbalances are not
major factors
n mental health problems not a result of biological
factors
n
Learned Behavior

Behaviorism is a scientific process, a scientific
strategy as much as a theoretical orientation
Classical Conditioning
Definition:
Type of learning in which an organism develops
associations among different events.
STIMULUS  RESPONSE
Classical Conditioning
Ivan Pavlov
The Salivary Conditioning of Dogs
 Dog


Food
Dog Food (Unconditioned Stimulus; UCS)
Salivation (Unconditioned Response; UCR)
 Dog
Food + Tone
 Tone


Salivation
Salivation
Salivation
Tone (Conditioned Stimulus; CS)
Salivation (Conditioned Response; CR)
Classical Conditioning
UCS
UCR
Punished by Parent
Discomfort
CS
UCS
UCR
Steal a Cookie
Punished by Parent
Discomfort
CS
CR
Thought of Stealing Cookie
Discomfort

So… according to this theory if you have associated
a bad feeling to acts of theft, future acts of theft are
decreased
Behaviorism - Skinner (1904-1990)
Operant conditioning
Criminal behavior is learned and strengthened
because of the reinforcements it brings (we notice
the consequence of what happens).
People are ultimately determined by the
consequences of their environment.
Definition of Operant Conditioning
Learning in which behaviour is strengthened by reinforcement, or
diminished if followed by punishment. Stimuli can be added
or subtracted from learner’s environment.
Reinforcement is a contingency between response(s) and
consequences.
1. Positive Reinforcement
2. Negative Reinforcement
3. Positive Punishment
4. Negative Punishment
Extinction – no reinforcement or punishment (most effective
way to eliminate behavior according to Skinner).
Reinforcement and Punishment
REMEMBER:
Any event that increases responding is called reinforcement.
Any event that decreases responding is called punishment.
Any event that is presented is called positive.
Any event that is removed is called negative.
Comparison of Positive and Negative
Reinforcement
Positive
Negative
Follows a behavior
Follows a behavior
Increases behavior
Increases behavior
Involves the presentation of a
desirable stimulus
Involves the removal or avoidance of
an unpleasant stimulus
Comparison of Positive and Negative
Punishment
Positive
Negative
Follows a behavior
Follows a behavior
Decreases behavior
Decreases behavior
Involves the presentation of a
nondesirable stimulus
Involves the removal or avoidance of a
pleasant stimulus
Process in operant conditioning
Behaviour
Reinforced
Positively
Punished
Negatively
Behaviour occurs
more frequently
Positively
Negatively
Behaviour occurs
less frequently
Types of Operant Conditioning (humans)
Positive
Negative
Pleasant Stimulus Produced
Aversive Stimulus Removed
Reinforcement
Student
Receives a
Put on
Buzzer
(increases
completes
good grade
seatbelt
stops
responding)
assignment
Aversive Stimulus Produced
Pleasant Stimulus Removed
Punishment
Motorist
Receives
Teenager
Privileges
(decreases
speed
a ticket
stays out
removed
responding)
too late
(grounded)
Operant Conditioning
Two basic schedules of reinforcement
Continuous
Behaviour is reinforced each time it occurs.
Intermittent
Based on either the passage of time or the number of
responses.
Intermittent conditioning is the hardest to extinguish
(e.g. gambling is based on this principle)
Operant Conditioning

Antisocial Behaviour and Reinforcement
Prisoners and behavior
 Positive Reinforcement
 Following the rules to gain access to spousal visits
 Negative Reinforcement
 Breaking out to escape the aversiveness of being locked up.
 Bullying
 Positive Reinforcement
 Attention from peer onlookers
 Tangible reward from victim (e.g., toy)
 Negative Reinforcement
 A provocative victim withdrawing or ceasing verbal taunts

Behaviorism…plus the adoption of
cognition = social learning theory

Cognitive learning


formation of concepts, schemas, theories, attitudes, beliefs, and
other mental or abstract versions of the world.
Social learning theory

Behaviorism is too simple.

Must examine perceptions, thoughts, expectancies, competencies and
values to understand criminality.
we learn from observing environment
 reinforcement maintains behavior
 place greater emphasis on cognitive variables than behaviorists
 social learning theory emphasizes cognition!

Social Cognition

Defining social cognition
 Social cognition concerns how people make sense of
other people and themselves
 Processing, interpreting, and communicating information
 Thoughts
and Attitudes
 Moral Reasoning
 Attributional Processes
Moral Development
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
 Cognitive growth
 reasoning versus behaviour
 We actively construct moral judgments through
experiences of social interaction.
Moral Development
The Case of Heinz and the Druggist:
Mr. Heinz's wife is dying. There is one drug that will
save her life but it is very expensive. The druggist will
not lower the price so that Mr. Heinz can buy it to save
his wife's life. What should he do? More importantly,
why?
Kohlberg’s Stages
Level I
Stage
Orientation
1
Punishment Orientation
Pre-Conventional

Right & wrong is determined by what is
punished.
2

Instrumental Hedonism
Right & wrong is determined by what is
rewarded.
Kohlberg’s Stages
Level II
Stage
Orientation
3
“Good Boy/Good Girl”
Conventional

Right & wrong is determined by close others’
approval or disapproval.
4

“Law & Order” Orientation
Right and wrong is determined by society’s
rules and law, which should be obeyed rigidly.
Kohlberg’s Stages
Level III
Stage
Orientation
5
Social Contract Orientation
Post-Conventional

Right and wrong is determined by society’s
rules, which are viewed as fallible rather than
absolute.
6

Universal Ethical Principle
Right and wrong is determined by abstract
ethical principles that emphasize equity and
justice.
Moral Reasoning in
Non/Delinquents
(adapted from Jennings, Kilenny & Kohlberg, 1983)
Non-Delinquents (%)
Study
Delinquents (%)
Pre-
Conventional
Pre-
Conventional
Kohlberg (1958)
25
75
80
20
Hickey (1972)
7
93
53
47
Kohlberg (1958)
58
42
92
8
Critchley (1961)
15
85
87
13
Hudgins & Prentice (1977)
30
70
80
20
Moral Reasoning & recidivism
Connecticut Reformatory Study (Jennings et al., 1983)

Follow up (12 – 18 months) of delinquents released from a
reformatory
Preconventional reasoners – 66% recidivated
Conventional reasoners – 40% recidivated
Gibbs (1995)


Delinquents randomly assigned to treatment program with or
without moral reasoning education
Followed up for 12 months
Treatment with moral reasoning – 15% recidivism
Treatment without moral reasoning – 41% recidivism
Observational Learning
Bandura

Vicarious conditioning, what we see others doing, how they are
reinforced or punished and we imitate their actions

Four steps in modeling process:
Attention
2. Retention
3. Reproduction
4. Motivation
1.
Observational Learning

Bobo Doll Experiments (Bandura 1960’s)

Modeling of Aggression

Model-rewarded Condition
Model-punished Condition
No-consequences Condition
No Model

Induces frustration





Opportunity to Play with Toys (incl.
Bobo Doll)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH
HdovKHDNU
What happens?
Mean imitative aggression scores
Observational Learning
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
ModelRewarded
ModelPunished
No
Consequence
No Model
The Bobo Doll Study
Observational Learning

Results on Bobo the Clown study
 Children in the aggressive condition imitated a good
deal of the model’s behaviour, both physical and
verbal aggression
 Children in the non-aggressive and control groups
exhibited practically none (70% had zero scores).
Observational Learning

Observational/Imitational Learning or Vicarious learning (Bandura)
 People learn from observing the behaviour of others, and observing
the outcomes of that behaviour.
 Modeling:
 This is where viewers learn behaviours from watching others
and may imitate them.
 the more respected the model, the greater the impact on our
behaviour
 It’s not what they say but what they do that is important and the
consequences of those actions
 the behaviour of model is more likely to be imitated if observer sees
model get a reward
DON ANDREWS –

Risk, Needs, Responsivity, Treatment Model
Developed the Personal, Interpersonal and CommunityReinforcement Model (PIC-R) (Andrews and Bonta)
Belief that to truly understand criminal behaviors, we must look at:
Antecedents: EVENTS that PRECEDE behaviors
AND
Consequences: EVENTS that FOLLOW behaviors

Both elements signal rewards and costs for different behaviors

You must look at the big picture!





Media Violence & Aggression

Violence in the media



Friday the 13th film franchise (Body Count = 179)
First-person shooter games (Doom, Halo)
Case Studies:




14yr old shoots three classmates, inspired by The Basketball Diaries
Seven yr old boy accidentally kills his 3 yr old sister by mimicking professional
wrestling move seen on TV
John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan after he
watched the movie "Taxi Driver" fifteen times.
A gang in Manchester, England, tortured a 16-year-old girl, set her afire and
left her dying, while one of the attackers repeated a line from Child’s Play 3:
"I’m Chucky– wanna play?" (The New York Times, July 10, 1994)
Media Violence & Aggression

The Catharsis Hypothesis


Viewing violence reduces acting out on aggressive impulses
Aristotle - - katharsis—



Thought drama allows viewers to identify with the aggression on stage,
releasing their own impulses, reducing pressure
Freud—good to have an outlet for aggressive drives
“blowing off steam”; “getting it out of your system.”

Notion of “blowing off steam” by performing an aggressive act, watching
others engage in aggression, or engaging in a fantasy of aggression.

Is this true?
Media Violence & Aggression

Correlational Evidence
 Meta-analytic
Reviews
 Average effect sizes ranging
from r = .11 to r = .31.
 All reviews have found a positive relationship
 Greater exposure
linked to increases in aggression.
 The relationship equivalent to the relationship between
smoking and lung cancer
 Small to moderate relationship
Media Violence & Aggression

Correlational Evidence
 Effects of media violence are especially strong in those who:
 Are dispositionally
aggressive, hostile or irritable
 Lack empathy
 Younger
viewers
 Can identify strongly with the aggressive character
 Violent scenes are realistic
 Violence is portrayed as being justified
 Viewers parents do not intervene
Media Violence & Aggression
 Longitudinal Studies:
 Johnson (2002) tracked 700 families for 17 years.
 Significant
relationship between time spent watching
television during adolescence and criminal behavior
and interpersonal violence
 Independent of parental education, family income, or
neighborhood violence
Media Violence & Aggression

How does exposure influence aggression?

Influence values and attitudes toward aggression
Legitimize aggression
 Make aggression seem necessary to solve problems


Habituation or Desensitization
Physiological and psychological responses reduced
 Desensitizes viewers to pain and discomfort of victims




In the short term, media violence increases aggressive thoughts,
physiological arousal, and mimicking
In the long term, media violence leads to stable aggression-supporting
beliefs, and an aggressive bias when interpreting
stimuli/events/interpersonal interactions (Anderson et al., 2004)
- e.g. they must want to hurt me, it is reasonable to use aggression in this
situation…
Social Information Processing

Human behaviour and Social Context
 Competent performance in social contexts is a function
of the skilful processing of social cues
 Encoding
and interpreting of cues;
 Script retrieval and evaluation; and
 Response enactment.
 A cue is


A stimulus that provides information about what to do in a particular
social situation.
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Social Information Processing

Attribution Theory
 How individuals
use information to arrive at causal
explanations for events.
 Hostile Attributional Bias (Kenneth Dodge)
 The tendency
to perceive hostile intent in others even when it
is totally lacking.
 Some individuals




Define social problems in hostile ways,
Adopt hostile goals,
Seek few additional facts and generate fewer alternatives
Anticipate few consequences for aggression.
Social Information Processing

Cognitive Scripts Model (L. Rowell Huesmann)
 What are scripts?
 Cognitive
scripts are mental images or blueprints of how one
feels he or she should act in a variety of situations.
 Role of Cues and Scripts in Aggression
 Observation
of aggression
 We encode


Aggressiveness of the act and
Any relevant pieces of information in the surrounding environment.
Social Information Processing

Cognitive Scripts Model (L. Rowell Huesmann)
 Can violent media “cue” aggressiveness?
 Violent
media provides us with scripts that outline - acceptable motives, targets, etc.
 An aggressive
idea suggested by a violent movie can
“prime” other semantically-related thoughts.

Priming is an increase in the speed or accuracy of a decision that
occurs as a consequence of a prior exposure to some of the
information in the decision context, without any intention or task
related motivation
Following Authority Figures
Moral Disengagement



Through social learning, people internalize moral principles.
But, people act against these moral principles to commit
crime



Why do people do immoral acts against their own moral judgment
when ordered to do so by higher authority or under high social
pressures?
They do this by “disengaging” from these morals
e.g., justifying their behaviour, dehumanizing victims
Considering the situation AND the personal attributes of the
person in understanding why people do what they do.
Deindividuation





Deindividuation (Zimbardo)
process of losing ones identity and becoming part of a
group, as a situational variable
person loses self-awareness
lowers restraints regarding antisocial behaviour
can be achieved through crowds, masks, uniform, darkness
because people more abusive/aggressive when their
identity is hidden
Situational Determinants

Groups and Aggressive Behaviour
 Deindividuation
 Social
psychology of individual in the crowd
 Diminished sense of self and individuality
 Zimbardo Prison Study
 Prisoners
and Guards
 Uniforms, Prisoner numbers, Batons
Stanford Prison Experiment


The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological
effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was
conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by psychologist
Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty-four undergraduates
were selected out of 70 to play the roles of both guards and prisoners
and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology
building.
Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond
the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous
and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of the guards
were judged to have exhibited "genuine" sadistic tendencies, while
many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be
removed from the experiment early. After sensing that everyone had
been too absorbed in their roles, including himself, Zimbardo
terminated the experiment after six days. It was supposed to last 2
weeks.
Authority As An Instigator of
Criminal Behaviour
“Crimes of Obedience” (Kelman & Hamilton) –
behaving in certain way b/c someone with power
told them they must
 An act performed in response to orders from
authority that is illegal/immoral by larger community
(i.e. – Watergate)
 Stanley Milgram - electric shock experiment

Situational Determinants
Obedience to Authority
 Stanley Milgram


Teacher-Learner Scenario
• Experimenter asks participant
(“Teacher”) to administer
punishment in the form of electric
shocks to confederate (“Learner”).
• Level of shocks increased at each
mistake by 15 volts, from 15 to
450 volts.
Situational Determinants

Stanley Milgram

Teacher-Learner Scenario

Learner protests more and
more as shock increases

Experimenter continues to
request obedience even if
teacher balks
120 “Ugh! Hey this really hurts.”
150 “Ugh! Experimenter! That’s all.
get me out of here. I told you
I had heart trouble. My heart’s
starting to bother me now.”
300 (agonized scream) “I absolutely
refuse to answer any more.
get me out of here You can’t hold
me here. Get me out.”
330 “(intense & prolonged agonized
scream) “Let me out of here.
Let me out of here. My heart’s
bothering me. Let me out,
I tell you…”
Situational Determinants

Experimenter’s Schedule of Prods
 Prod 1: “Please continue” or “Please go on”
 Prod 2: “The experiment requires that you continue”
 Prod 3: “It is absolutely
essential that you continue”
 Prod 4: “You have no other choice, you must go on”
Situational Determinants
Percentage of subjects
who obeyed experimenter
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Slight Moderate Strong
(15-60) (75-120) (135-180)
Very
XXX
Intense Extreme Danger:
strong (255-300) intensity
severe (435-450)
(195-240)
(315-360) (375-420)
Shock levels in works
People will follow authority figures and
commit acts that go against their moral compass
Social factors are very important
How do we apply this to gangs, wars, etc…??
Differential Association
Theory
It depends on the norms present in the particular groups to which a
person belongs.
These norms come from the group of friends or families
The difference between prosocial attitudes learnt and antisocial attitudes learnt
Impact depends on
-how often the person interacts with the antisocial attitudes (frequency)
-how long the person interacts with the antisocial attitudes (duration)
-how early in life the person encounters the antisocial attitudes (priority)
-the prestige of the persons who hold the antisocial attitudes (intensity)
Peers

The influence of peers on antisocial behaviour with respect to
three aspects of peer adaptation:
 Seeking acceptance from the peer group
 Friendship selection
 Friendship interaction
Peers

Peer interaction
 Modeling and reinforcement of antisocial behavior;
Discouraging prosocial attitudes and behavior.

Longitudinal research: associating with delinquent peers
was one of strongest predictors of delinquency.
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