Legal Psychology

Gerhard OhrbandULIM University, Moldova

1st lectureIntroduction into Legal Psychology – Theories of Crime

Today’s plan:

• Presentation

• Course structure

• Literature

• Course rules

• Exams and grading

• Introduction into Legal Psychology

• Theories of crime

Course structure

Lectures: • 1. Introduction into Legal Psychology – Theories of crime • 2. Correctional treatment• 3. Victimology• 4. Police psychology• 5. Testimony assessment• 6. Criminal responsibility• 7. Judicial judgments• 8. Psychological assessment of families

Course structure

Seminars:9. Eyewitness testimony10. Jury decision-making11. Child abuse12. Prostitution13. Rape14. Tax evasion15. Stereotypes and prejudices in the law system

Course literature

• Ronald Blackburn (1993/2004). The Psychology of Criminal Conduct – theory, research and practice. Piter (Russian translation).

• Renate Volbert & Max Steller (2008). Handbuch der Rechtspsychologie. Göttingen: Hogrefe.

Legal Psychology

Psychology: human emotions, cognitions and behaviour

Legal Psychology: behaviour in the context of law and crime

1. Theories of crime2. Violent crime3. Sex offenses4. Youth delinquency5. Criminal careers6. Psychopathy7. Resilience in the development of antisocial behavior8. Crime preventionResearch: Do video-games influence aggression?What do criminals feel?

Content

1. Theories of crime

• Personality• Learning theory• Social information processing• Sociostructural theories• Labeling theories• Situation-based explanation: the rational choice

perspective• Developmental and neuropsychological theories

Eysenck

• Basis: his general personality model (extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism)

• High values in all dimension > disposition for criminal behavior

• Actual situation• Broader societal context• While context variables influence differences in

crime rates between countries, the personality variables represent the individual risk to become a criminal unter certain conditions.

Modification from Lösel & Schmucker (2004)

PERSONALITY

Distal causes Proximal causes Proximal Distal

consequences consequences

Genetic Biological Psychometrical Experimental Social behavior

determinants mediation properties reactions

DNA

Arousal

Limbic system

ExtraversionNeuroticism

Psychoticism

Lowconditionability

Crime

Correlations between personality and criminal behavior

• Psychoticism: r = .40 - .50 (risk of a circular explanation)• Neuroticism: r = .28 (Fischer and Kretschmer, 1996)• Extraversion: r = .04 (metanalyses); stronger correlations

for adolescents and for self-reported, lighter crimes.• Correlations for N higher in adulthood and for serious

crimes.• Problem: many findings are based on studying prison

inmates (possible prisonization effects).• Self-regulation: consistent correlations for impulsivity,

substance abuse, high risk-taking dispostions etc.

Social-cognitive theory of aggression (Bandura, 1976)

Learning Activation Stabilization, destabilization

•Model learning•Operant conditioning•Structural determinants

•Model influence•Aversive treatment•Motivating incentives•Orders•Bizarre thought patterns

•External reinforcement•Punishment•Representative reinforcement•Self-regulation

Crick and Dodge (1994): information processing model

• Aggressive persons show distortion in the following phases

1. Encoding of information (e.g., selective perception of aggressive cues)

2. Interpretation of the situation (e.g., attribution of hostile intention in others)

3. Goal setting (e.g., egocentrical and uncooperative goals)

4. Generation of alternative reactions (e.g., more aggressive schemas in memory)

5. Appraisal and selection of behavior (e.g., expected success of aggression)

6. Action initiation (e.g., social skills deficits)

A bio-psycho-social model of criminal behaviour

Biological factors

Psychological factorsSocial Factors

Increased vulnerability

Criminal behaviour

Stabilization of criminal behaviour

Stressful life-events

reinforcement

General principles for criminological theories (Lösel and Bender, 2005)

1. Differentiation between forms of crime2. Multiple and not single factors3. Delinquency is not static4. Factors that cause or trigger problem behavior

can be different from those which stabilize and reinforce it

5. Equifinality and Multifinality6. Biological, psychological and social factors

interact7. Offenders are not only passive objects of

social influences

6. Psychopathy –Antisocial personality disorder

• DSM-IV, Axis II personality disorders• 3 clusters: Cluster A (‘eccentric’): schizotypal and

paranoid personality disordersCluster B (‘dramatic’): narcissistic and

antisocial personality disordersCluster C (‘anxious’): avoidant and

dependent personality disorders (Van Velzen and Emmelkamp, 1996)

Antisocial personality disorder

Symptoms:

• failure to conform to standards of decency

• repeated lying and stealing

• failure to sustain long-lasting and loving relationships

• low tolerance of boredom

• complete lack of guilt

Antisocial personality disorder

• History of the term:Prichard (1835): ‘moral insanity’Koch (1889): ‘psychopathic inferiority’DSM-I: ‘sociopathic personality disturbance’DSM-IV, today: ‘antisocial personality disorder’

• antisocial personality disorder/sociopathy vs. psychopathy: the latter plus other, more emotive factors such as lack of empathy for others, remorselessness and manipulativeness.

Cleckley’s primary characteristics of antisocial personality disorder (1976)

1. Superficial charm and good ‘intelligence’2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking3. Absence of ‘nervousness’4. Unreliability5. Untruthfulness and insincerity6. Lack of remorse or shame7. Inadequately motivated antisocial behaviour8. Poor judgement and failure to learn by experience9. Pathological egocentricity and incapacity for love10.General poverty in major affective reactions11.Specific loss of insight12.Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations13.Fantastic and uninviting behaviour14.Suicide rarely carried out15.Sex life impersonal, trivial and poorly integrated16.Failure to follow any life plan

Research: Aggressive Videogames and Violent Behaviour – Fundamental Positions

Is there a correlationbetween

aggressive videogamesand violentbehaviour?

Yes No

Watching aggressive videogames

causes violent behaviour

Violent individuals preferaggressive videogames

General affective aggresion model

Long-term effects of video game violence

Effects of videogames on violent behaviour(Anderson and Dill, 2000)

Video game and trait irritability

Research: Criminals’ emotional experiences (Canter and Ioannou, 2004)

• Most social science explanations of crime emphasise societal context, antecedent events, or personality characteristics of offenders.

• By contrast the legal processes focus on the purposes of the offender and his/her intentions, seeking to determine the agency of the offender in the criminal act rather than causes external to the individual.

• One bridge between the external influence and the internal agency, that has tended to be neglected, is the actual experience of the offence by the offender.

Russel’s circumplex of emotions

The emotions making up the four regions of SSA

The emotions that are significantly different across the seven categories of crime type

Overall emotional direction of offences in each of seven categories

Literature:

• Anderson, C.A. and Dill, K.E. (2000). Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78 (4). 772-790.

• Canter, D.V. and Ioannnou, M. (2004). Criminal’s emotional experiences during crimes. International Journal of Forensic Psychology, 1 (2), 71-81.

• Cleckley, H. (1976). The mask of sanity. St. Louis, MI: C.V. Mosby.

• Van Velzen, C.J.M. and Emmelkamp, P.M.G. (1996). The assessment of personality disorders: Implications for cognitive and behaviour therapy. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 34(8), 655-668.

Journals

• Acta-Psychiatrica-Scandinavica• American Journal of Psychiatry• Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law• Clinical Psychology Review• International Journal of Forensic Psychology• Journal of Abnormal Psychology• Journal of Clinical Psychiatry• Journal and Interpersonal Violence• Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease• Personality and Individual Differences• Psychopathy, Crime & Law

Internet resources

• http://psy.ucsd.edu/~hflowe/index2.htm

Contact information

Gerhard Ohrband

ohrband@ulim.md

022 – 20 59 21; 068 – 077 988