Psychological Theories of Crime Causation

We have so far covered in the class on Sigmund Freud psychoanalytical theory and how the
tensions between id, ego and superego may be related to crime and delinquency.

The next set of theories link how behavior, personality and intelligence may be linked to crime.

Behavioral psychology – The basic principle underlying behavior is that behavior is learned. The
father of behaviorism is John B. Watson, who believed that the purpose of psychology is to
understand, predict and control human behavior.

Learning theory- This was largely propounded by Pavlov, Bandura and Patterson. According to
this theory human behavior is largely learnt.

 People will either be rewarded or punished for particular types of behavior and this will
have a direct influence on their learning.
 A particular action (target behavior) may result in external reinforcements which
increases its probability in future.
 External reinforcements mean acquiring something desirable that can be positive
reinforcements like money or social status and also negative reinforcements in the form
of tantrum emotional blackmailing. External reinforcements always increase the target
behavior.
 Positive reinforcements increase the target behavior by rewarding the individual. While
negative reinforcements increases the target behavior in future by removing some
unpleasant stimulus. Example is when a parent relents to a child’s demands due to his
tantrums, the child terminates the tantrum. The child has thus used negative
reinforcement to increase the odds that next time, the parent will relent more quickly.
 On the other hand an undesirable target behavior (like may be punished, that decreases
the likelihood of this behavior.
 Deviant or delinquent beahavior can be removed by removing the External
reinforcements, both positive and negative.

Social Interactional Theory- Gerald Patterson

 Worked with delinquent children and their parents.

 Parents, who monitor their children closely, recognize deviant behavior, and use
consistent punishment and reinforcement are more likely to rear non delinquent children.
 Conversely Patterson noted that parents of children, who steal, do not track, do not
interpret stealing etc as deviant, they do not punish and they do not care.
 Judith Harris 1998 In her book ‘The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the
Way They Do- Parents Matter Less Than You Think and Peers Matter More’ was an
argument against Patterson’s theory.
  Her argument was that criminal behavior is learnt but group socialization with peers are
more important sources of childhood behavior, including delinquency.

Modeling Theory- Albert Bandura

 He argued that human behaviors are acquired simply by observing role modeling the
behavior of others.
 Children who observe their parents abusing each other or adolescents observe their
friends engaging in delinquency, would be at risk in engaging in similar behavior
themselves.

Psychologists have focused on effects of media on aggression, violence and some forms of
criminal behavior. Violence in the media is often portrayed in a glorified manner conducive to
role modeling. There are researches that found that the amount of time spent watching television
during adolescence predicted aggression during child hood.

Since learning theory has much to do with the sociological conditions in which the learning takes
place, much of the sociological theories also deal with these aspects which will be touched in the
next module.