essay on 8 marker about evaluating the amygdala as a biological explanations for crime and antisocial behaviour, including 2 PEEL paragraphs and a conclusion for top band marks
Evaluate 1 bio explanation of crime and antisocial bhv (8) - amygdala
One strength of the role of the amygdala in criminal behaviour is that there is
supporting evidence. The amygdala is involved in fear conditioning and in the fight or
flight response. Damage to the amygdala may result in an inability to prevent acting
spontaneously in an aggressive way or also to have issues with fear conditioning.
This may mean that the individual may fail to learn the negative consequences of
antisocial behaviour and may have no fear of being caught. Pardini et al. (2014)
found that individuals who displayed high levels of aggression which was evident in
childhood had smaller amygdalas, and were 3 times more likely to exhibit violence
and aggression 3 years later. This implies that amygdala size may predict future
violence. However, not everybody with a smaller amygdala goes on to become a
criminal. For example, psychopathic tendencies involving a lack of empathy and fear
may be suitable for high-level management positions and for extreme sports such as
parachuting. This means that brain structure may not be the only factor that causes
psychopathy and aggression.
One weakness of the role of the amygdala in criminal behaviour is that it may
be too simplistic. The amygdala is considered to be an integrative centre for
emotional behaviour and motivation. Increased activity in the right side of the
amygdala may lead to increased impulsive violent behaviour. However, it is not
certain whether the amygdala is linked to crime as other social-psychological factors
often have an important role in antisocial behaviour. For example, being labelled as a
criminal in childhood may lead to the child living up to that label and hence actually
displaying criminal behaviour, rather than just being slaves to their own neurobiology
and just behaving aggressively just because of their relatively small amygdala size.
This means that by focusing only on the amygdala, the complex interrelationship
between different parts of the brain and environmental factors is ignored. This is a
weakness since it is often this interrelationship that is more valid in helping to
explain antisocial behaviour and crime as only 1 biological factor is unlikely to
explain why someone would decide to behave in a criminal way after being exposed
to violence and criticism from peers. This is a weakness as this explanation reduces
criminal behaviour to just the function of a certain brain structure. In spite of that,
researchers were able to isolate 1 particular brain structure and demonstrate its role
in animal studies, where manipulation of external stimuli is better controlled. This
helps them to show the consequences of stimulation and damage of the amygdala
to the animal’s behaviour. This helps to increase the scientific credibility of the
amygdala explanation in criminal behaviour.
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