Lecture notes
International A Level (IAL) Psychology Unit 3
- Module
- Psychology
- Institution
- Other
Covers all syllabus except perhaps maths and statistics
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❖ Explanations for Crime and Anti-Social BehaviourThinking about Crime 12/9
Are criminals born or made? EXTRA
● Both.
At what age should you be held criminally responsible? Why?
● 14. Pg. 4, 5
How should we deal with criminals?
SUMMARY KEY
We have already seen stuff related to crime in the AS (testosterone, etc). We Anti-social: 2 meanings, also means
are skipping pages 4 and 5. against society (violent, aggressive).
Manslaughter / Murder
SLT (From the Media)
Social Learning Theory (From the Media)
❖ Vicarious reinforcement EXTRA
Imitation of a behaviour if the behaviour led to desirable consequences for the role model.
1. SLT developed by Bandura and Walters. These are the same notes
2. Suggests that much behaviour is learnt from the role model, through reinforcement from the AS for social
learning theory.
and observation.
3. The process involves observation of behaviour, which may lead to vicarious Pg. 7 Booklet.
reinforcement.
4. According to Bandura there are 4 requirements for observational learning to take
place.
● Attention: The person must first pay attention to the model
● Retention: The observer must be able to remember the behaviour that has been
● Retention: Memory so
observed.
behaviour can be
● Motor reproduction: The ability to replicate the behaviour physically. recalled later.
, ● Motivation: The observer must be motivated to reproduce the observed behaviour, ● Motivation to imitate a
this could be hoping for a reward. behaviour: Vicarious
5. Self efficacy is the idea that people are more likely to engage in certain behaviour reinforcement.
when they believe they are capable of executing that behaviour successfully, this means
that they will have high self-efficacy.
6. Not all behaviour is copied, anything that includes a reward is more likely to be
copied.
Bandura
Male children are more likely to copy male aggressive role models.
❖ What is it about a role model that might lead to criminal behaviour? We can only talk about
- The role model has similarities to you. (e.j. Gender, age). Bandura’s study when we
- Boys are more likely to copy male role models of their same gender. talk about the films.
❖ Environment.
- KEY
Role model: People you look
up to / admire. People we
observe and imitate.
EXTRA
Elena’s response: SLT suggests that people will imitate aggressive behaviour from people who act as
their role models. In this case Cassie watches a series about street fighting which may be her
favourite actor is the one committing those actions and makes her reproduce his actions. Pg.8
Booklet.
Social learning from the media suggests that Cassie will imitate the behaviour of a role model she
sees in the television series (1). She will have identified with the role model, so most likely a female
criminal in the television series (1). Cassie will observe the behaviour and remember what she has
seen the characters do in the series (1) and reproduce the behaviour she has paid attention to in her
work place by shouting at her boss (1).
, Evaluation of the Idea that SLT can Explain Criminality through the Media
EXTR
Evidence for this view ● MacBeth Williams: natural exp to investigate the introduction of tv to a small A
community in British Columbia, Canada. Found that after only 2 years of
receiving tv, these 16 children were twice as aggressive as two control groups
she studied in nearby communities who had been brought up with television Pg.
in varying amounts. SLT may be an explanation of criminality. 9
○ However, Williams suggested that increased aggression was more likely
to be a result of the increased value placed on materialistic lifestyles
than the violence that they were exposed to in tv programmes.
● In a meta-analysis of correlational studies, Comstock and Paik concluded
that many reported a positive correlation between television violence viewed
and aggressive measures of behaviour recorded, with an overall correlation
coefficient of +0.19.
○ However, it is not a causation.
○ However, there may be the influence of a third, unmeasured variable,
such as social class. Children from lower socio-economic status watch
more television than those in higher socio-economic groups, and are
also more likely to be delinquent (Flood-Page et al).
● Bandura found that children were more likely to copy aggressive acts if
motivated vicariously by what would be regarded as a role model. This was
particularly noted for boys.
○ However, it can be argued that children are naive individuals and
therefore do not fully appreciate the consequences of their behaviour
for only examining the short-term effects of exposure to aggressive role
models as the long-term effects have not been established.
Quality of evidence Not real aggression
● Issues of Unethical to do lab experiments so only have correlation evidence therefore
reliability don’t have a cause + effect
● Validity
● Generalisabili
ty
● Credibility
● Objectivity
● Subjectivity
● ethics
Evidence against this In McDermott's "hot sauce study" he found that aggression was caused by a gene
view and alternative called MAOA-L.
explanations
Dabbs showed that testosterone levels had an influence in aggressive behaviour
when comparing violent to non-violent criminals.
Raine showed a difference in murderer's brain (PFC and amygdala).
, Practical implications
Conclusion
There is no convincing evidence that criminality is a result of observational learning, particularly as a result
of observing violent media.
Despite a phenomenal amount of research conducted using a range of research methods, there is no
unequivocal evidence that links exposure to violence with aggression or antisocial behaviour.
All the research indicates is that the relationship between exposure to violence and aggression is neither
simple nor straightforward.
SUMMARY KEY
Self Fulfilling Prophecy and Criminal Behaviour
AO1 13/9
● Definition (Flanagan, 2000). EXTRA
● Steps of Self Fulfilling Prophecy
Pg. 11
Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when a prediction about another comes true simply because of the Booklet
expectation (Flanagan, 2000)
Step 1
Perceiver has expectations of the target person e.g. new york colleague is unfriendly. This will be due to a
stereotype that the perceiver has( links to ideas of labelling)
Step 2
Perceivers show behaviours towards the target e.g. when he arrives in office, you don’t bother to
introduce yourself
Step 3
The individual is given little opportunity to challenge the expectations and will begin to internalise the
behaviour
Step 4
Target behaviour shown towards the perceive e.g. he sits at desk + doesn’t speak to anybody
Therefore
Prophecy is fulfilled + the cycle continues
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