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Forensic Psychology
All forensic psych terms and studies
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Top-down | An approach to offender profiling based on interviews with 36 serious criminals that uses the intuition of the profiler to determine likely suspects |
| Bottom-up | An approach to offender profiling created by David Canter that emphasises the importance of data and statistics from previous similar cases to create a profile |
| Organised offender | Someone who is intelligent and sociable and leaves very little forensic evidence at the crime scene |
| Disorganised offender | Someone who lacks social skills and has a poor employment history and leaves lots of forensic evidence at their impulsive crime scene |
| Data assimilation | The stage of top-down profiling where the profiler reviews the forensic evidence |
| Crime scene classification | The stage of top-down profiling where the profiler decides whether the scene is organised or disorganised |
| Crime reconstruction | The stage of top-down profiling where the profiler makes a hypotheses about the sequence of events involved |
| Profile generation | The stage of top-down profiling where the profiler deduces the likely characteristics of the offender |
| Investigative Psychology | The branch of the bottom-up approach to offender profiling that uses data to identify likely psychological characteristics of offenders |
| Interpersonal coherence | The theory that offenders are similar in their everyday life as they are while they commit offences - violent crimes are committed by violent people |
| Forensic awareness | The finding that the extent to which offenders covered their tracks can tell us information about their previous convictions |
| Geographical profiling | The use of Circle Theory to determine an offenders likely home/base |
| Extraversion | Personality characteristic characterised by seeking out new experiences |
| Neuroticism | Personality characteristic characterised by emotional instability |
| Psychoticism | Personality characteristic characterised by lack of empathy and excessive aggression |
| Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) | The questionnaire developed to determine a person's ratings for extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism |
| Cognitive Distortions | Ways in which thoughts can be irrational or illogical |
| Hostile Attribution Bias | A cognitive distortion whereby the person assumes ambiguous behaviour from others is aggressive/negatively-motivated |
| Minimalisation | A cognitive distortion whereby an offender downplays the severity of their crimes |
| Levels of Moral Reasoning | Kohlberg's theory that claims our morality develops and evolves as we mature |
| Preconventional morality | When a person's morality is motivated only by whether or not they will be rewarded or punished for their behaviour |
| Conventional morality | When a person's morality is motivated by maintaining a reputation as 'good' |
| Postconventional morality | When a person's morality is motivated by their own morals and principles rather than consequences |
| Inference | Making assumptions about a person's thought processes based on behaviour and self-reporting |
| Differential Association Theory | The social learning theory of forensic psychology. It claims we learn offending behaviour from our community and close relationships |
| Pro-crime attitudes | According to Differential Association Theory, children learn that offending is desirable - though they also learn specific moral codes around offending |
| Learning specific criminal acts | According to Differential Association Theory, children are taught how to actually carry out offences and which ones are the best |
| White collar crime | Offences that are financially-motivated and non-violent, such as fraud or embezzlement |
| Superego | The part of our personality that works on the morality principle |
| Weak superego | Due to an absent same-sex parent, a child develops this and becomes more selfish and pleasure-seeking |
| Deviant superego | Due to pro-crime parental figures, a child develops this and has a skewed morality principle |
| Over-harsh superego | Due to very strict parental figures, a child develops this and it could lead to actually enjoying guilt and shame |
| Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis | Bowlby's theory that claims an inconsistent mother figure will lead to emotional, social and intellectual issues in a child |
| Affectionless psychopathy | A condition caused by maternal deprivation, according to Bowlby, which is characterised by a lack of empathy or guilt |
| Phallic stage | The psychosexual phase where the child becomes aware of their gender and begins the Oedipus/Electra complex |
| Oedipus Complex | Where young boys compete with their fathers for the affection of their mothers |
| Electra Complex | Where young girls compete with their mothers for the affection of their fathers |
| MAOA-L | A gene variant that leads to a desensitisation to serotonin |
| Amygdala | A part of the limbic system that recognises threats and stressors to initiate the fight or flight response |
| Prefrontal cortex | Brain area responsible for controlling moral behaviour - found to have reduced functioning in offenders |
| Serotonin | An inhibitory neurotransmitter. Low levels of this (or insensitivity to it) can lead to offending behaviour |
| Atavistic form | Lombroso's theory that offenders are less evolved and this can be seen in their physical characteristics |
| Somatotypes | The theory that we can predict the type of offences a person will commit based on their body type |
| Neural correlates | Parts of the brain or neurotransmitters that are linked with a particular characteristic |
| Custodial sentencing | Where a court requires an offender to be held against their will in a prison or psychiatric hospital |
| Recidivism | Reoffending and being reconvicted |
| Retribution | Giving victims and their families a sense of justice by punishing an offender to make them atone for their crimes |
| Deterrence | Discouraging others from performing the same action, usually by punishing that behaviour |
| Deindividuation | A psychological effect of prison that removes the identity from prisoners |
| Token economy | The use of coupons and rewards in prisoners to encourage desirable behaviour |
| Positive reinforcement | A pleasant response that increases the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated |
| Punishment | An unpleasant response that decreases the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated |
| Negative reinforcement | An unpleasant response that increases the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated |
| Anger management | The process of trying to reduce feelings of hostility |
| Stress Inoculation Model | A type of CBT used for anger management, which helps the patient become more self-aware and more autonomous |
| Restorative justice | A way of dealing with offender behaviour where the offender meets the victim and tries to repair the damage they did |
| Rehabilitation | When an offender realises the error of their ways and changes to becoming law-abiding |
| Copson | 82% of US police found top-down approach useful |
| Alison | Most police rated a bad profile as accurate |
| Copson | 75% of UK police found bottom-up approach useful |
| Lombroso | Wrote ‘The Criminal Man’ and identified traits |
| Brunner | All males in one family were violent and had MAOA-L variant |
| Raine (twin study) | MZ twins had 52% conviction concordance, vs. 21% DZ |
| Raine (neural) | Low prefrontal cortex activity and amygdala asymmetry in offenders |
| Caspi | Boys needed both MAOA-L variant and mistreatment to become violent |
| Dunlop | Extraversion & psychoticism good predictors of delinquency |
| Van Dam | Very few offenders had all 3 personality traits |
| Dodge | Aggressive children showed hostile attribution bias |
| Kenedy & Grubin | Only 1/3 of sex offenders believed they had caused harm |
| Palmer & Hollins | Offenders scored lower on moral reasoning than non-offenders |
| Osborne & West | 40% chance of conviction in sons of criminals, compared to 18% of non-criminals |
| Bowlby | 12/14 juvenile thief affectionless psychopaths had suffered maternal deprivation |
| Zimbardo | Found that prisoner participants identified by their number |
| Hobbs & Holt | Boys who had token economy had 27% increase in social behaviours |
| Moyes | Recipients of token economy had similar recidivism rates |
| Taylor & Novaco | Found a 75% success rate in anger reduction |
| McGuire | Prisoners given anger management less likely to reoffend compared to those on parole |
| Sherman & Strang | Recidivism rates of 11% in restorative justice recipients compared to 37% in prisoners |
Created by:
SBlakeley
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