Child-And-Criminal-Psychology-Unit-3-Pdf Psych

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Child and Criminal Psychology Unit 3 PDF
Child Health Psychology (Durham University)
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Psychology Unit 3 - Child Psychology
Theories of attachment
- Classical Conditioning (learning by association)
- Operant Conditioning (learning by rewards/punishment)
- Social Learning Theory (Bandura) - children learn through role models. Caregivers
are role models and good relationships set the tone for future relationships/
attachments
Evaluation of Learning Theories
- Scientific and plausible explanation for attachment
- O’Connor (2013) implemented a SLT-based program which improved parent-child

relationships (support for SLT)
- Bowlby (1944) would argue that attachment is an innate process
- Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that attachments formed through sensitive
responsiveness, so if a parent was more receptive and responsive to a child’s
needs, they were more likely to form close attachments, and is nothing to do with
whether the parent feeds the child or not. They also found that children form
multiple attachments throughout their childhood, however there is a hierarchy of
attachment (as they were in more distress when one particular caregiver was
absent)
Bowlby’s theories of attachment
Imprinting : a pre programmed behaviour that created a bond between an animal

and its offspring to maintain close proximity
- there is a critical period for imprinting (12-24 hours)
- Attachment in humans is slower than in animals, though, so the finding are not
generalisable to all species
Safe base: A secure base is provided through a relationship with one or more
sensitive and responsive attachment figures who meet the child's needs and to
whom the child can turn as a safe haven, when upset or anxious.

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Bowlby’s stages of attachment
1. During the first few months of life the baby will respond the same to any adult
figure. Smiling will become a social response after several weeks
2. A child will start to use social releasers, such as crying and smiling to promote
close proximity, but this is directly towards the primary caregiver (3-6 months
old)
3. At around 6 months old, the baby will show an intense attachment to a single
primary caregiver and will want to maintain close proximity. They also show
signs of distress at separation and joy at union. They treat strangers with fear -
this continues until around 2-3 years old.
- Bowlby believed in monotropy (that a child only has one primary caregiver
(normally the mother)
- Children must have a constant presence of the mother during the critical period
(0-30 months)
- Internal working model of attachment (future relationships are based on your first
relationship with your primary caregiver). If infants don’t attach to a caregiver
during the critical period, they risk negative consequences in later life (eg less
resilience and more dependency)
- Secure attachment requires for affection to be mutual
Evaluation of Bowlby
- Schaffer and Emerson found that 17% of babies had formed multiple
attachments as soon as attachment behaviours were displayed and by 4 months
old, 50% of the babies had formed multiple attachments. (going against Bowlby’s
monotropy theory)
- Support of the Internal Working Model was found through a study including a
Love Quiz in which people recalled their relationships with their parents and
compared it to their current relationships, however this was based on self-report
data which may be biased

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- He based his theories on animals. Human attachment is a slower and more
complicated process, so his finding may not be generalisable to other species.
- 44 Thieves supports his Maternal Deprivation hypothesis
Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis
This theory helps to explain the negative effects of failing to form a relationship at
the critical period
Maternal deprivation can lead to not developing a basis for positive emotional
relationships which leads to delinquency
44 Thieves (Bowlby 1944) - Support for Maternal Deprivation

Hypothesis
Aim : To investigate the long term consequences of deprivation and to provide

evidence to support Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis
Retrospective study comparing experiences of prolonged separation separation

from the mother in a group of 44 thieved and a matched group of 44 emotionally
disturbed youngsters who had committed no crimes
Unstructured interviews were used
IQ tests
Follow up interviews
Checklist to diagnose affectionless psychopathy
17/44 of the juvenile thieves had experienced maternal deprivation
Of these 17, 12 were classified as affectionless
Evaluation
- 17 thieves had maternal deprivation but the 27 who did not were not considered.
So he cannot conclude that maternal deprivation causes delinquency
- He constructed the interviews himself so he can be criticised for researcher bias

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- Retrospective data can be unreliable
- The control group was not exactly a normal group of people so they cannot be
compared
- Triangulation was used which increase validity
Separation
Separation anxiety can be displayed by children from 7 months old. They display a
desire to be close to their mother and display distress when they’re separated
Short term effects of separation (Robertson’s research into protest, despair

and detachment)
Robertson and Bowlby (1952)
Children start off by protesting : actively refuse comfort, cry profusely, throw himself
around and seek for mother figure
2. Despair - become increasingly hopeless, withdrawn, apathetic and demonstrated

mourning
3. Detachment - accepts comfort from other adults and refuses comfort from
mother figure upon return.
EVALUATION OF SEPARATION
Some psychologists argue that it isn’t the separation itself that causes such
distress, but the unfamiliar environment, suggesting there are other explanations for
the behaviour of a child, not just the absence of the mother.
Fagin (1966) found that it was only the unaccompanied children that showed
distress in a hospital, highlighting the fact that the absence of the mother plays a
huge role in a child’s distress.
However (Spitz) found that compared to prison babies who were visited regularly by
their mothers, orphaned babies experience anaclitic depression and a decay in
development

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Schaffer (1958) found that the amount of protesting depends on the age of the
baby. Babies before 28 weeks protested more than older babies.
Deprivation
Deprivation, according to Rutter, is the loss of an attachment. This could be due to

lack of attention or responsiveness to a child’s needs.
William Goldfarb studied deprivation.
He studies 15 Institutionalised children and compared them to a control group of

those fostered straight from their mother. They were matched on education and
occupation and studied from 6 months old. Those who remained in the institution
was mentally and socially behind the control group and this development lag
continued into adolescence, and they showed problems with relationship
development
44 THIEVES also explain the effects of deprivation (suggests that deprivation can
lead to a lack of empathy and guilt, and therefore criminal behaviour )
EVALUATION OF LONG TERM EFFECTS OF DEPRIVATION
there is only a relationship between separation and juvenile behaviour so we cannot

establish cause and effect
Goldfarb acknowledged that maybe impoverished environments with a lack of

stimulation are associated to poor language development and developmental
retardation, so these negative effects could be a result of the environment not
deprivation
COUNTERARGUMENT OF LONG TERM EFFECTS
Robertson (1971) found that the long term effects of deprivation can be reversed if
the child is put into a good environment, with responsive care to the child’s needs,
that would substitute the need for the mother figure. Although stages of despair,
protest and detachment were seen, the long term effects were avoided
The Robertson's suggested that reminders from home like pictures and toys could
help the child cope with separation
Privation

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Privation occurs when a child never had emotional care and so may have never
formed any relationships with a primary caregiver
This normally occurs when a child experiences extreme neglect.
- The Case of Genie is an example of the irreversible effects of privation

-
The Czech twins is an example of the reversible effects of privation as long as

the child is put in good quality care
Ainsworth’s work on attachment
Strange Situation Procedure
The experiment is set up in a small room with one way glass so the behavior of the
infant can be observed covertly. Infants were aged between 12 and 18 months. The
sample comprised of 100 middle-class American families.
The procedure, known as the ‘Strange Situation,’ was conducted by observing the
behavior of the infant in a series of eight episodes lasting approximately 3 minutes
each:
(1) Mother, baby, and experimenter (lasts less than one minute).
(2) Mother and baby alone.
(3) A stranger joins the mother and infant.
(4) Mother leaves baby and stranger alone.
(5) Mother returns and stranger leaves.
(6) Mother leaves; infant left completely alone.
(7) Stranger returns.
(8) Mother returns and stranger leaves.
Behaviour was operationalised and put into categorical data

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Ainsworth (1970) identified three main attachment styles, secure (type B), insecure
avoidant (type A) and insecure ambivalent/resistant (type C). She concluded that
these attachment styles were the result of early interactions with the mother.
A fourth attachment style known as disorganized was later identified (Main, &
Solomon, 1990).
Secure Resistant Avoidant
Separati Distressed Intense No sign of

on when distress distress when
Anxiety mother when the the the
leaves mother mother leaves
leaves
Stranger Avoidant of The infant The infant is

Anxiety stranger avoids the okay with the
when alone, stranger - stranger and
but friendly shows fear of plays
when the the stranger normally
mother is when the
present stranger is
present
Reunion Positive The infant The Infant

Behavio and happy approaches shows little
r when the mother, interest when
mother but resists the mother
returns contact, may returns
even push
her away

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Other Uses the The infant The mother

mother as a cries more and stranger
safe base to and explores are able to
explore less than the comfort the
their other two infant equally
environmen types well
t
% of 70% 15% 15%

infants
TYPE A : Insecure-Avoidant
Insecure avoidant children do not orientate to their attachment figure while

investigating the environment.
They are very independent of the attachment figure both physically and emotionally
(Behrens, Hesse, & Main, 2007).
They do not seek contact with the attachment figure when distressed. Such children
are likely to have a caregiver who is insensitive and rejecting of their needs
(Ainsworth, 1979).
The attachment figure may withdraw from helping during difficult tasks (Stevenson-
Hinde, & Verschueren, 2002) and is often unavailable during times of emotional
distress.
TYPE B : Secure Attachment
Securely attached children comprised the majority of the sample in Ainsworth’s

(1971, 1978) studies.
Such children feel confident that the attachment figure will be available to meet their
needs. They use the attachment figure as a safe base to explore the environment
and seek the attachment figure in times of distress (Main, & Cassidy, 1988).

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Securely attached infants are easily soothed by the attachment figure when upset.
Infants develop a secure attachment when the caregiver is sensitive to their signals,
and responds appropriately to their needs.
According to Bowlby (1980), an individual who has experienced a secure

attachment 'is likely to possess a representational model of attachment figures(s) as
being available, responsive, and helpful' (Bowlby, 1980, p. 242).
TYPE C : Insecure-Resistant
The third attachment style identified by Ainsworth (1970) was insecure ambivalent
(also called insecure resistant).
Here children adopt an ambivalent behavioral style towards the attachment figure.
The child will commonly exhibit clingy and dependent behavior, but will be rejecting
of the attachment figure when they engage in interaction.
The child fails to develop any feelings of security from the attachment figure.
Accordingly, they exhibit difficulty moving away from the attachment figure to
explore novel surroundings.
When distressed they are difficult to soothe and are not comforted by interaction
with the attachment figure. This behavior results from an inconsistent level of
response to their needs from the primary caregiver.
Evaluation of Ainsworth
This caregiver sensitivity theory is supported by research from, Wolff and Van
Ijzendoorn (1997) who conducted a Meta-analysis (a review) of research into
attachment types.
They found that there is a relatively weak correlation of 0.24 between parental
sensitivity and attachment type – generally more sensitive parents had securely
attached children

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However, in evaluation, critics of this theory argue that the correlation between
parental sensitivity and the child’s attachment type is only weak. This suggests that
there are other reasons which may better explain why children develop different
attachment types and that the maternal sensitivity theory places too much
emphasis on the mother.
Focusing just on maternal sensitivity when trying to explain why children have
different attachment types is, therefore, a reductionist approach.
An alternative theory proposed by Kagan (1984) suggests that the temperament of

the child is actually what leads to the different attachment types. Children with
different innate (inborn) temperaments will have different attachment types.
This theory is supported by research from Fox (1989) who found that babies with an
‘Easy’ temperament (those who eat and sleep regularly, and accept new
experiences) are likely to develop secure attachments.
Babies with a ‘slow to warm up’ temperament (those who took a while to get used
to new experiences) are likely to have insecure-avoidant attachments. Babies with a
‘Difficult’ temperament (those who eat and sleep irregularly and who reject new
experiences) are likely to have insecure-ambivalent attachments.
In conclusion, the most complete explanation of why children develop different

attachment types would be an interactionist theory. This would argue that a child’s
attachment type is a result of a combination of factors – both the child’s innate
temperament and their parent’s sensitivity towards their needs.
Belsky and Rovine (1987) propose an interesting interactionist theory to explain the
different attachment types. They argue that the child’s attachment type is a result of
both the child’s innate temperament and also how the parent responds to them (i.e.,
the parents’ sensitivity level).
Additionally, the child’s innate temperament may, in fact, influence the way their
parent responds to them (i.e, the infants’ temperament influences the parental
sensitivity shown to them). To develop a secure attachment, a ‘difficult’ child would
need a caregiver who is sensitive and patient for a secure attachment to develop.
The strange situation classification has been found to have good reliability. This
means that it achieves consistent results. For example, a study conducted in
Germany found 78% of the children were classified in the same way at ages 1 and 6
years (Wartner et al., 1994).
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Although, as Melhuish (1993) suggests, the Strange Situation is the most widely
used method for assessing infant attachment to a caregiver, Lamb et al. (1985) have
criticized it for being highly artificial and therefore lacking ecological validity.
The child is placed in a strange and artificial environment, and the procedure of the
mother and stranger entering and leaving the room follows a predetermined script.
Mary Ainsworth concluded that the strange situation could be used to identify the
child's type of attachment has been criticized on the grounds that it identifies only
the type of attachment to the mother. The child may have a different type of
attachment to the father or grandmother, for example (Lamb, 1977). This means that
it lacks validity, as it does not measure a general attachment style, but instead an
attachment style specific to the mother.
In addition, some research has shown that the same child may show different
attachment behaviors on different occasions. Children's attachments may change,
perhaps because of changes in the child's circumstances, so a securely attached
child may appear insecurely attached if the mother becomes ill or the family
circumstances change.
The strange situation has also been criticized on ethical grounds. Because the child
is put under stress (separation and stranger anxiety), the study has broken the
ethical guideline protection of participants.
However, in its defense, the separation episodes were curtailed prematurely if the
child became too stressed. Also, according to Marrone (1998), although the Strange
Situation has been criticized for being stressful, it is simulating everyday
experiences, as mothers do leave their babies for brief periods of time in different
settings and often with unfamiliar people such as babysitters.
Finally, the study's sample is biased - comprising 100 middle-class American

families. Therefore, it is difficult to generalize the findings outside of America and to
working-class families.
Classical studies concerning attachment
1. Cassiba et al (2013)
2. Van Izendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)
3. Ding et al (2014)
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CASSIBA ET AL (2013)
Aim : To examine whether the distributions of child and adult attachment

classifications converge with the global distributions, or whether Italy takes a
special position.
Procedure: Meta-Analysis collecting studies using keywords like “italian’’,

‘’attachment’’, ‘SSP’ and ‘AAI’
The study only collected studies that used SSP and AAI
Used only gold-standard SSP
Overlapping samples were excluded to make sure every participant was only
included once
Only those where at least one of the authors was a reliable SSP and AAI code, or
where inter-rater reliability was high were considered.
The sample resulted in 17 studies (23 samples, 627 participants) using the SSP and
50 studies (72 samples, 2258 participants) using AAI, all with Italian samples.
The baseline data was taken from 21 USA samples which was used as the norm
Results:
In the nonclinical Italian samples, the majority of infants were classified as Type B
(53%), Type A (33%), Type C (14%)
Compared to American Children, Italian children showed more avoidant attachment.
Clinical children showed Type B (32%), Type A (40%) and Type C (28%).
The high percentage of unresolved issues may be due to the value of Catholicism in
Italian culture. As well as this, the difference in parent attachment may be due to the
unbalanced cultural gender roles in Italy.
Evaluation:
Does not establish cause and effect so cannot be considered scientific as it is a

qualitative review of other research
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The research draws on structured observations with fully operationalised behaviours

which increases the scientific status of the research
Meta analysis is a subjective process whereas methods such as laboratory

experiments or PET scans are considered more objective
There may be experimenter bias as the researcher used a database and specified
keywords therefore may have dismissed studies they felt were inappropriate.
Meta-analysis are normally time saving and cost-effective
VAN IZENDOORN AND KROONENBERG (1988)
Aim: To carry out cross-cultural analysis looking at differences between cultures and
within cultures of the attachment types in different countries. They also wanted to
gather data from the same countries to focus on issues with individual samples,
which may have biased the results.
Procedure: The samples were generally small which meant generalisability was
lower. Some other country samples had larger samples, which meant there could be
individual cultural differences between and within them.
Only studies of infants-mother attachment using the strange situation procedure and
giving ABC classifications were included
Special samples such as Down syndrome children were not included where samples
were less than 35
Studies with overlapping samples were not included
Involved children under 2
Results:
In most studies attachment was most frequently found to be Type B
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In general there were fewer Type C attachments than expected and more Type A
than expected in the western countries. In Israel and Japan there are more Type C
and fewer Type A.
Variations within countries are nearly 1.5 times more than between the countries.
When all the US studies were put together the overall distribution of attachment did
not match Ainsworth’s suggestions, therefore there was no accepted baseline
comparison after the meta analysis was carries out.
Possibly the media is the reason for the overall distribution of attachment types being
similar globally as the media often promotes child rearing from the perspective of the
western world.
Evaluation:
Using other studies means the researcher cannot be sure of the quality of each
study, which may reduce validity and the scientific status of the research
Strict criteria were used such as only having children over 2 years old. This
increases the reliability of the data sources as they could be sure that the studies are
comparable
A large sample of 1990 strange situations were used of 32 studies, including 8

different countries. The sample is representative of of a large, cross cultural
population, which increases generalisability
A meta analysis does not measure cause and effect
Did not have a baseline comparison, so this limits cross cultural comparison
DING ET AL (2014)
Aim: To investigate the relation of mother-infant attachment to attachment, cognitive

and behavioural development in young children
Procedure:
- longitudinal study
- SSP was used to evaluate mother-infant attachment in 12-18 month old infants
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- Ethical approval was obtained from the Committee of Children’s Hospital.
- Informed Consent was obtained from all the mothers
- 160 infant-mother pairs
- There were 82 boys and 78 girls
- After the first assessment, infants were followed up at 3 years old
- Follow up testing included 8 scenarios using SSP .
- Video and audio recording were used
- The videos were coded by 2 researchers
- Inter-rater reliability 95%
- AQS was used to evaluate the attachment type of the infants
- This evaluation was performed by the mothers
- 10 mothers were randomly selected to re-evaluate their children as a consistency/
control measure
Results:
Of the 118 followed up children:
- 78 demonstrated secure type of attachment
- 40 demonstrated insecure attachment
- 10 had avoidant
- 27 had resistant 3 had disorganised
There were no reports of family issues like divorce or death.
The insecurely attached infants scored more highly in social withdrawal, aggressive
behaviour and total problems in early childhood than the securely attached infants.
Conclusions
Consistency
The majority of securely attached infants maintained a secure attachment

relationship with their mothers in early childhood while the majority of insecure
attached infants maintained insecure attachment with their mothers
Those with x-avoidant are more similar while those with x-resistant are less similar
Evaluation
- Holistic approach
- Ethics - parental consent
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- Longitudinal study - follow children over time so can look at changes over time
and consistency
- Attrition rate in longitudinal study
- Cultural validity - Shanghai and most of the sample were middle-income families
- All children first born, full term, healthy infants - control for possible temperamental
and physical factors that could affect relationships
- SSP - standardised procedure
- Inter-rater reliability was 95%
- The mothers completed the CBCL so there might be social desirability
- 10 mothers randomly selected for test-retest as a control test
CROSS CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF ATTACHMENT
GERMANY
The results seemed to support the hypothesis that maternal sensitivity lead to
different attachment types, however the proportions of Types AB and C attachments
differed in Germany to the US. Type A was at 49%, compared to 15% in the US.
This is probably because children are taught to be more independent from a young
age in Germany and are more used to being left alone, which may have been
misinterpreted as avoidant behaviour.
JAPAN
Takahashi (1986) found an absence of Type A insecure-avoidant attachment types

nut a greater distribution of Type C insecure-resistant attachment compared to the
US. Japanese children are rarely separated from their parents and attachment is
characterised by close and continuous physical contact. They were also found to
have more irritable temperaments, so were more distressed when separated. This
shows that the SSP is not a valid tool to measure attachment
Sagi et al (1985) found that attachment type in Israel was similar to the US
Ethnographic fieldwork
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
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Jean Piaget’s Theory
Biological maturation is the process by which an individual naturally matures in

stages according to when they’re biologically ready.
Adaptation: using assimilation and accommodation to make sense of the world

Assimilation: incorporating new experiences into existing schemas
Accommodation: when a schema has to be changed to deal with new experiences
Schema’s are mental representations or set rules that define a particular category of
behaviour - how the behaviour is executed and under what conditions.
Concepts are rules that describe properties of environmental events and their
relations to other concepts
Infants acquire concepts and schemata from interacting with their environment
Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development
1. Sensorimotor
2. Pre-operational
3. Concrete Operational
4. Formal Operational
Sensorimotor (birth-2 years old)
Infants live in the present rather than understanding time and space around them.
They learn by linking what they see, hear, touch, taste or smell to objects they are
using. They start grasping and sucking and learn to control their movements.
Object permanence
Until about 5 months , children appear to lose all interest in an object that disappears
from sight. They begin to anticipate the reappearance of objects.
At around 3 months old, they become able to follow objects with their eyes.
During the last half of their first year, they develop more complex concepts like
turning objects over and investigating their properties. Also, if an object is hidden, the
infant will search for it.
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Near the end of the sensorimotor period, deferred imitation is developed. This is
when a infant repeats a behaviour it observed in symbolic play (e.g. taking a stuffed
animal for a walk or feeding a baby doll)
2 year olds start to think symbolically and they can use words to represent objects
such as balls and animals.
Pre-operational period (2-7 years old)
• Egocentrism
• Cannot understand volume (conservation)
• Abstract symbols such as signs (these are personal to each child and normally
only close relatives understand these verbal signs)
The symbolic function stage (2-4 years old)

• Animism
• Symbolic play
• Children see the world through their own perspective
Intuitive thought stage (4-7 years old)

• Children ask a lot of questions
• Children do not realise that changing how something looks does not change its
volume, size or weight.
However young children show evidence of non-egocentric thinking as they

accommodate their language to suit the person they are talking to. They will talk in
longer sentences to adults than to peers.
Concrete operations (7-11 years old)
- children develop the understanding of conservation and categorisation.

- Are able to perform logical analysis
- Increased ability to empathise
- Understand cause and effect
- However they cannot solve hypothetical problems
Formal operations (12+)
- they can think about more than two things

- Develop the ability to think about how things change over time
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- Understand that events have a sequence
- Actions have consequences
- They can now reason about hypothetical situations
- Formal operational egocentrism - they start to think about what others think about
them.
- Not all people reach this stage in their life
EVALUATION OF PIAGET’S THEORY
- He did not always define his terms operationally

- Many of his studies lacked proper controls
- Therefore, a lot of his work was not experimental
- His results came from interviews and observations with children, meaning cause
and effect relations among variables cannot be identified with certainty
- However, his work has practical applications, for example it can help to mould the
school syllabus in a way that will be suitable for the speed of development of
children
- It generated a great deal of research and this research often supports his ideas
(such as the 3 mountains task)
- however, arguably, the tasks he gave children were too difficult, and had he given
them simpler tasks, they would be able to tackle the problem, so children can
actually do thinks earlier than Piaget thought.
- Children are exposed to tasks at home, so they will naturally learn these skills,
which criticises Piaget’s theory that it is innate.
- Flavell et al (1981) found that 3 year old children were able to understand that
their point of view wasn’t the same as the other person’s when the objects were
made more familiar to them. Therefore, children showed evidence of logical
thinking before they reached the concrete operational stage.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Behaviourist Approach - Skinner and Bandura
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- Children come into this world as a ‘tabula rasa’ (clean slate) and they absorb all of
the behaviours they see and imitate them.
- Skinner proposed that Operant Conditioning was the way children learned
behaviours - through punishments and rewards
- Bandura (SLT) proposed that children learned through imitating role models.
Social Learning Theory
Bandura stated that behaviour and language is learned from the environment
through modeling, observation and vicarious learning.
Children pay attention to some of the people they come into contact with and imitate
their behaviour through observation.
In observation, language is acquired though the influence of others who are models.
Vicarious learning involved punishment and rewards.
E.g. the role of the teacher in language development and acquisition is to reward and
motivate children to attempt what they observe. The teacher should therefore be a
good model so as for the children to learn language skills from the teacher and those
within the school environment. Children observe and listen to others speak and
acquire language skills.
Skinner VS Bandura
- They both focus on observable behaviour

- They both acknowledge the role of reinforcement, though they differ on the extent
to which it can be relied on in learning. They both agree, however, that external
factors like peers and teachers play a large role in their development (vicarious
reinforcement)
- Both remind us that we need to consider individual differences when we teach
language
- There are also similarities in the ideas of modelling, imitation and observation
HOWEVER
- Skinner was a behaviourist and Bandura was a cognitive theorist

- Theorists like Bandura argue that past experiences don’t play a large role in
behaviour choices. While Skinner places emphasis on direct reinforcement,
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Bandura argues that direct reinforcement cannot be credited for ALL types of
learning. Bandura stresses the role of internal processes
- Chomsky emerged and criticised Skinner’s theory of reinforcement and argued
that language acquisition is innate and universal
CHOMSKY’S THEORY - (LAD)
Chomsky is a nativist theorist, who argued that children are predisposed to

learning languages and the environment just offers children people to talk to
and practice their language on.
The Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
This is an imaginary black box which exists in the brain. It is though tot contain all
and only the principles which are universal to all human languages. The child needs
access to samples of natural language, these samples then act as triggers to
activate the device.
It consists of 4 main features:
1. The ability to distinguish speech sounds from other sounds

2. The ability to organise linguistic data into various classes
3. Knowledge that only a certain kind of linguistic system is possible and other kinds
are not
4. The ability to engage in constant evaluation of the developing of the linguistic
system
Chomsky (1965) observed recorded adult speech and called in ‘defective’ as it was
full of incorrect grammar, hesitations, stuttering and false starts. If this is the
language children hear, they would arguably learn to speak incorrectly. However
children still manage to acquire the rules of grammar, acting as evidence that
language acquisition is innate.
- The LAD would make reinforcement unnecessary (goes against Bandura)
EVALUATION OF CHOMSKY
- We cannot simply ask children why they say what they do.
- Languages do have basic universal similarities
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- However, the fact that languages share similarities does not mean this is because
of an innate brain mechanism. Hebb et al (1973) found that language universals
may just reflect the realities of the world.
- Brown and Hanlon (1970) found that parents did not normally correct incorrect
sentences uttered by their children, meaning that reinforcement does not occur as
often as Bandura and Skinner proposed and that reinforcement is not necessarily
needed.
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY
Vygotsky believed that Piaget did not put enough emphasis on how culture and
social experiences affect our development.
This contradicts Piaget's view of universal stages and content of development

(Vygotsky does not refer to stages in the way that Piaget does).
Hence Vygotsky assumes cognitive development varies across cultures, whereas

Piaget states cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures.
(i) Vygotsky states cognitive development stems from social interactions from guided
learning within the zone of proximal development as children and their partner's co-
construct knowledge. In contrast, Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems
largely from independent
explorations in which
children construct knowledge
of their own.
(ii) For Vygotsky, the

environment in which
children grow up will
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influence how they think and what they think about.
Stages:
1. Pre-intellectual language
2. Pre-linguistic thought
Private speech is talking to yourself through a problem
Children who engage in private speech are more likely to develop good cognitive
abilities, proving that private speech is a vital aspect of cognitive development.
After a certain point, children stop vocalising their thoughts and engage in inner
speech.
Inner speech represents the internalisation of words and the mental manipulation of
them as symbols for objects in the environment.
ZPD - Zone of Proximal Development
This is referred to as the gap between what children can achieve by themselves and
what they can learn with help. / the buffer between what they want to achieve and
what they can achieve.
Scaffolding in when a MKO (more knowledgeable other) adjusts the quality and
quantity of support provided to a child during a teaching session.
Evaluation of the ZPD and Vygotskys theory
- the ZPD in an internal process and cannot directly be tested, making the theory
less scientific
- He did not show how the developmental stages that lead to a child being able to
learn from socialisation actually occurs. However, he died at 37 so did not have
the time to fully develop his theory
- Dunn and Munn (1987) found that social interaction in play enhances cognitive
development, which provides evidence that scaffolding helps children learn.
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- Vygotsky focuses on culture as well, so provides a more holistic explanation to
cognitive development than Piaget
- ZPC can be applied to educational contexts
- Socialisation may be overemphasised in Vygotsky’s theory as Chomsky found that
language acquisition could be innate as well as external
PIAGET’S THEORY OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
- Does thought come before language

- Do we need a word for something before we can think about it
A child has to develop object permanence before it can understand the

concept ‘gone’
By 3 months old, babies will take turns in conversation with their caregivers
HOLO (One word sentences) usually occur at the age of 10-13 months
For example a child may say ‘dada’ and mean for their father to come to them’. This
is a way of symbolic play, which is a key role in the development of language.
During the pre-operational stage (2-7 years old) children make use of their mental
imagery and start using symbols for objects. Symbols include using words for things,
suggesting language is just one use of symbols and that thinking goes beyond
language use.
Piaget’s first two stages (sensorimotor and preoperational) show that thinking
develops first, to include understanding that objects exist in the world. Then the child
develops the use of words for objects and language develops from there.
EVALUATION OF PIAGET’S LANGUAGE THEORY ADDITION
- There is practical application. Piaget showed that a child is NOT a miniature adult,
which can help parents and teachers understand that a child cannot do something
that they are not ready to do yet.
- Some studies have shown that babies imitate some adult actions, suggesting
babies do have self-awareness before they know how to speak, further proving
that thought DOES come before language
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- However other studies argues that such imitated actions are actually reflexive and
not done through self awareness. Researching with very young children is difficult
as we cannot be sure that we are collecting valid data, which is a weakness of
Piaget’s theory
ERIKSON’S STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
maintained that personality develops in a predetermined order through eight stages

of psychosocial development, from infancy to adulthood. During each stage, the
person experiences a psychosocial crisis which could have a positive or negative
outcome for personality development
According to the theory, successful completion of each stage results in a healthy

personality and the acquisition of basic virtues. Basic virtues are characteristic
strengths which the ego can use to resolve subsequent crises.
Failure to successfully complete a stage can result in a reduced ability to complete

further stages and therefore a more unhealthy personality and sense of self. These
stages, however, can be resolved successfully at a later time.
Basic
Stage Psychosocial Crisis Virtue Age
1 Trust vs. Mistrust Hope 0 - 1½
2 Autonomy vs. Shame Will 1½ - 3
3 Initiative vs. Guilt Purpose 3-5
4 Industry vs. Inferiority Competency 5 - 12
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5 Identity vs. Role Fidelity 12 - 18

Confusion
6 Intimacy vs. Isolation Love 18 - 40
7 Generativity vs. Care 40 -

Stagnation 65
8 Ego Integrity vs. Wisdom 65

Despair
EVALUATION
By extending the notion of personality development across the lifespan, Erikson

outlines a more realistic perspective of personality development (McAdams, 2001).
Based on Erikson’s ideas, psychology has reconceptualized the way the later periods
of life are viewed. Middle and late adulthood are no longer viewed as irrelevant,
because of Erikson, they are now considered active and significant times of personal
growth.
Erikson’s theory has good face validity. Many people find that they can relate to his
theories about various stages of the life cycle through their own experiences.
However, Erikson is rather vague about the causes of development. What kinds of
experiences must people have to successfully resolve various psychosocial conflicts
and move from one stage to another? The theory does not have a universal
mechanism for crisis resolution.
Indeed, Erikson (1964) acknowledges his theory is more a descriptive overview of

human social and emotional development that does not adequately explain how or
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why this development occurs. For example, Erikson does not explicitly explain how
the outcome of one psychosocial stage influences personality at a later stage.
However, Erikson stressed his work was a ‘tool to think with rather than a factual
analysis.’ Its purpose then is to provide a framework within which development can
be considered rather than testable theory.
One of the strengths of Erikson's theory is its ability to tie together important
psychosocial development across the entire lifespan.
Although support for Erikson's stages of personality development exists (McAdams,

1999), critics of his theory provide evidence suggesting a lack of discrete stages of
personality development (McCrae & Costa, 1997).
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Criminal Psychology
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY
Suggests people internalise labels and behave accordingly. A person is labelled as

antisocial because of a trait they may have. Once they become labelled the are
treated differently. This motivates them to act accordingly in order to fulfil their label.
However, not everybody internalises labels.
Labels are often based on stereotypes
Evidence for SFP
- Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968) conducted an experiment to test whether

achievement could be self-fulfilling. They gave children an IQ test and told
teachers who were going to be bloomers and who weren’t. They found that
teachers didn’t expect much of the average students and the students who were
labelled ‘bloomers’ continued to improve their IQ.
- Jahoda (1954) studied a tribe who had a tradition of naming their children the day
of the week their were born on. Monday boys meant peace while Wednesday
boys meant aggressive. When they looked at criminal records, 22% of those born
on a Wednesday were arrested, with only 7% of Monday boys.
- Madon (2004) Parents were asked to predict the drinking habits of their children
into the future. Those who predicted that their children would be heavy drinkers
were proven right, as their children fulfilled the label their parent’s expected of
them, while the opposite happened to others, suggesting labels have an impact.
As well as this, parent’s beliefs can have a massive impact on the child’s
behaviour.
EVALUATION OF SFP
- It would be very unethical to study self-fulfilling prophecy as a cause of crime by

treating someone differently and seeing if it affected their behaviour. SFP is very
hard to experimentally study ethically.
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- It can’t be proved that SFP causes criminality. The studies are based on
correlations, which do not determine cause and effect.
- Many of us reject the way we are treated by others so the prophecy is not fulfilled
(when we want to prove someone wrong)
- There are many other reasons for crime, like our biology or the families we are
raised in. It ignores the influence of genetic facts which may control aggression.
THE PYGMALION EFFECT
Social Learning Theory as an explanation of the role of the media

and anti social behaviour
If news or crime programs document some of the negative consequences of

committing a crime, this may work towards encouraging an individual not to try the
offence to seek a positive outcome.
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Remember - ARRM
Research evidence:
- Bartol and Bartol (2014) found aggression levels to increase when playing more
violent bloody video games
- Charlton et al found that the media is not a main influence in criminal behaviour
- Bandura. Ross and Ross found that children copy a narrow range of aggressive
behaviours from adult role models.
- Media violence may be cathartic, reducing aggression rather than encouraging it
- Bastian
Desensitisation
Too much exposure to violence or crime resulting in a lack of emotional reactiveness

to violence
ASPD - Antisocial personality disorder
- reckless norm for social norms
- Impulsive behaviour
- Inability to experience guilt
- Low tolerance for frustration
- Low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin and maldevelopment of limbic and

PFC are believed to affect judgement, planning, and impulse control in ASPD
sufferers.
- Low socioeconomic status, low education levels and abusive parents contribute
to the onset of ASPD
Treating offenders
- Punishment teaches offenders the consequences of their actions, but does not
deal with faulty thought patterns
- CBT
- Behavioural treatments
- Biological treatments
CBT is a talking therapy that can help offenders change the way they think and
behave.
By changing a person’s thoughts about a situation, this affects how they react to
that situation. It can also help reduce the irrational beliefs and physical symptoms
experienced with anger.
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It helps offenders
- develop insight into their thoughts and feelings and how these influence their
behaviour. This helps the reactions to their behaviour become more prosocial
- Develop victim empathy
- Challenge their tendency to self-justify their offending
EVALUATION
- CBT is only effective if the offender has motivation to change
- Psychotic behaviour may mean the offender is able to manipulate having

improved —> not effective
- The problem might not be as simple as anger management but may be more
biological
- Drug use may alter reactions (e.g. alcoholics are more aggressive) so offenders
may need to seek a more direct treatment
- Sexual crimes may have a deeper trigger such as high testosterone levels or
psychotic behaviour that can’t be treated by CBT
- CBT is time consuming
- CBT reduces recidivism up to 30% more than control groups who did not receive
CBT
- More effective than just behavioural techniques
Anger management
Anger management teaches relaxation techniques to deal with the physiological

response to anger.
There are 3 steps involved:
1. Cognitive preparation (identify the situations that provoke anger, thought

patterns are challenged)
2. Skill Acquisition ( new coping skills are learned such as relaxation, avoidance, or
social skills such as assertiveness and conflict resolution) - offenders are not
taught to be fearful of becoming angry.
3. Application practice (offenders role play a variety of scenarios to practice new

skills to control anger. These are conduct in controlled environments)
Offenders may also be asked to complete diaries on a regular basis
Evidence
Loza and Loza-Fanous (1999) found no relationship between anger and violent and
non-violent offenders
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Dowden (1999) showed reduced recidivism after anger management in high risk
offenders.
Howells et al (2015) did not find any improvement other than the treated offender
having more understanding of anger. So the results depend on the motivation of
offender
Ireland (2004) assessed 50 young males on an anger management course and 37

control prisoners. 92% of the prisoners showed an improvement in their
management of anger. HOWEVER it is possible that offenders were dishonest on
psychometric assessments and try to show they have improved.
EVALUATION
- it can only be used on offenders self motivated and WILLING to change their
behaviour
- Only useful in certain circumstances
- Not all offences are due to anger
- Rice (1997) found that some offenders used the skills learnt in AM to commit
crimes more effectively
Another alternative is DEVELOPING SOCIAL SKILLS TRAINING
(can be used in conjunction with AM) and is typically found in CBT. It looks at
training assertiveness and conflict resolution, trying to obtain employment and
dealing with future problems as well as thinking skills.
It is difficult to asses how social skills training specifically affects offenders because
they are often used alongside other techniques such as CBT. However, Pearson et
al (2002) found that the impact of social skills training resulted in reduced
recidivism.
PSYCHOLOGY (CASE) FORMULATION
A way of making sense of a person’s difficulties by looking at their relationships,

biological and social circumstances, life events and how they have interpreted the
events that have happened to them.
It includes 5 steps:
1. Early experiences
2. Core Beliefs
3. Triggers
4. Situation
5. Physical symptoms
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EVALUATION
+ Formulations can help simplify a lot of complex information and explain the
problem to other professionals. This can help them make decisions about the
persons future.
- It can be difficult to gain ALL of the information about the person. It heavily relies
of memory and the willingness to share this information
- Some individuals might have a disorder that us not known so cannot be reported,
which may influence their behaviour
COGNITIVE INTERVIEWS
This is a specific way of asking a suspect questions about an incident that is

designed to maximise accuracy of the information obtained.
There are 4 main techniques:
1. Talk about the context of the time of the event such as what they could smell,
hear, the time of day to put the person back into the event - this supports cue-
dependent recall
2. Free recall of everything without interruption
3. Change the order in which the event is recalled, such as recalling it backwards -
this avoids the influence of schemas that may point to a more chronological
stereotype
4. Change perspectives - ask the person what they think other witnesses might
have seen
Evidence for Cognitive interviews
Edward Geiselman conducted an experiment where he showed participants a video

of a crime and then used a cognitive interview to question some of them on what
they saw. He found that those who had a cognitive interview recalled more correct
details than the control group.
Fisher et al found that 48% more information was recalled using CI
They are more in-depth and detailed than standard interviews as they include more
open ended questions
Reduces bias
Ethics to consider:
- Remain impartial and open minded as an interviewer
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- Avoid leading questions
- Any information needs to be given freely and willingly in order to be
considered valid
EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY
Factors affecting eye witness recall:
- Stress and arousal
Through excessive amounts of stress or arousal our memory can become cloudy
STRESS = the physical or emotional tension caused by a factor or situation of the

crime
Yerkes-Dodson Law = suggests that as we get stressed about a situation, our

performance in that situation will eventually decline
Cortisol production is heightened due to stress, which could actually increase

reliability of memory due to selective attention. Reliability of eyewitness memory
may be strongest in the cases of giving specific details of a traumatic event.
Emotions which result in fixation may reduce the reliability of eyewitness memory as
peripheral details are less recalled.
Positive effects of stress
- generates fight of flight alertness which increases eyewitness alertness and

improves accuracy (selective attention)
Negative effects of stress
- Arouses anxiety which heightens emotions and can reduce concentration,

therefore lowering accuracy.
EVIDENCE:
- Qin et al suggests that stress can affect the way eyewitnesses encode memories
at the time of the crime
- Valentine and Mesout (2009) being highly anxious reduces the accuracy of
identifying perpetrators
- AlAbsi et al (2002) found that cortisol disrupts working memory but enhances
selective attention
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- Christianson (1992) claimed when the main event was emotional witnesses fixate
faster, more often and for longer on stimulus (semantic meaning is associated to
the memory)
FLASHBULB MEMORIES
Memory of an emotional event that is unusually clear and remains accurate over
many years
WEAPON FOCUS
Stress
The Yerkes-Dodson Law is applicable to any crime situation, including those in

which weapons are present.
When there is a weapon present, it creates an optimum level of arousal, which

assists the eyewitness in recalling information about the weapon, though not about
other details within the situation.
Attention
Rather than a source on memory, it is a focus of attention that diminishes the

capacity of witness to encode other information
Kerri Pickel (1998) investigated weapon focus in a hairdresser’s salon. A man walks
in to the salon and hands the receptionist either a handgun, a raw chicken or
scissors. Through the presence of raw chicken or a handgun, recall of the man was
the poorest, while when there were scissors, recall of the man was better,
suggesting that unusual and high threat items affect eyewitness recall. Threat alone
does not affect recall.
LEADING QUESTIONS CAN ALSO INFLUENCE EYE WITNESS

MEMORY AND PRODUCE ERRORS IN RECALL
The encoding of the event seen by a witness is just as critical as the initial
witnessing of the offence itself.
Reconstructive memory occurs when we attempt to make sense of what we have

seen and are influenced by our interpretation of the situation as well as our own
cultural norms and expectations. (shemata)
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Elizabeth Loftus investigated how leading questions can affect our recall of an
event. This is called the ‘misinformation effect’. This is where information that is
incorrect can change a person’s memory of an event.
HOWEVER
Yuille and Cutshall (1986) found that leading questions have limited effect on recall
of an event, such as a robbery. The researchers found that the witnesses had
detailed memories of the event and were not misled by the researchers’ leading
questions.
LOFTUS AND PALMER (1974)
Aim: To see if the phrasing of a question would affect estimates of speed, applying
these finding to the idea of leading questions in court.
Procedure for Ex 1
45 students were put into groups
7 films were shown, involving a traffic accident, each film lasting 5-30 seconds
After every film a each participant filled out a questionnaire
They were asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed/collided/
bumbped/contacted/hit each other.
Results
The use of the word smashes gave the highest estimates of results and contacted
gave the lowest estimate.
As the severity of the verb decreases, so does the mean estimate
Conclusions
A leading question can affect a witness answers
Maybe if the participant is unsure of the answer, he uses the question to guide him
We might expect participants to remember details that did not actually occur
Ex. 2
The second procedure was designed to provide additional insights into the origin of
the different speed estimates
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Procedure
150 participants were sampled and in various group sizes, they watched a film with
a multiple care accident, and then completed a questionnaire. The accident lasted 4
seconds and the film was less than a minute long. Some questions included each of
the words, while others were not asked for the speed at all (control group).
ONE WEEK LATER
The participants came back and answered questions such as ‘was there broken
glass on the road?’ (there wasn’t). The probability of saying yes was 0.32 when the
verb was smashed and only 0.14 with hit.
Evaluation
- lacks ecological validity as the participants viewed video clips. When witnessing a
real crime, people don’t pay as close attention as the ppts did in the study
- A study conducted by Yuille and Cutshall (1986) conflicts the findings of this

study. They found that misleading information did not alter the memory of people
who had witnessed a real armed robbery. This implies that misleading information
may have a greater influence in the lab rather and that Loftus and Palmer's study
may have lacked ecological valid
- A further problem with the study was the use of students as participants.
Students are not representative of the general population in a number of ways.
Importantly they may be less experienced drivers and therefore less confident in
their ability to estimate speeds. This may have influenced them to be more
swayed by the verb in the question.
WHAT INFLUENCES THE COURT PROCESS?
The decisions made by a jury can be influenced by a number of factors, including:
- characteristics of the defendant
- Pre-trial publicity
- Factors that influence behaviour in the deliberation room
The jury is made up of 12 adults. There are multiple factors that affect the jury’s
decisions
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1. PRE TRIAL PUBLICITY
This can influence the schemas the jury have about those involved. This can create
false perceptions of the defendant, even before information is given in court. It is
difficult to change such perceptions once they have been made.
DURING THE TRIAL
1. Defendant characteristics such as race, gender, appearance etc can bias the
jury based on stereotypes.
2. Expert witness testimony is often used to give scientific credibility to evidence.

Jurors tend to disregard warnings of the problems concerning eyewitness
testimony and still believe eyewitness accounts.
Cutler et al (1989) demonstrated that jurors were likely to give guilty verdicts when
the expert witness used easy to understand language, suggesting the use of
language can influence the opinions of juries.
DEFENDANT CHARACTERISTICS
1. Attractiveness/ good looking vs ugly
2. Race / skin colour
3. Accent
Accent
A defendant with a non standard accent may be judged as guilty. People with a
rough or strong regional accent are often found guilty of robbery as they are seen as
needing more money than a posh defendant.
- a study found that Brummies are more likely to be found guilty of armed robbery
than cheque fraud compared to a defendant with a posh accent.
Race
White jurors in mock trials demonstrate negative bias to black defendants and give
them harsher sentences. A similar bias can be found for black jurors towards white
defendants.
However, another study found that white jurors were more likely to find black jurors
not guilty than guilty to avoid looking racist.
However, bias cannot be consistent amongst jury.
Attractiveness
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An unattractive defendant is more likely to be convicted by a jury. Attractive

defendants who used their looks to commit an offence are more likely to be
convicted. If you’re unattractive you’re seen as less trustworthy.
Jurors see attractiveness as intelligence, honesty and friendliness. HOWEVER, if the

crime is fraud, attractive people are more likely to get harsher sentences.
EVALUATION OF DEFENDANT CHARACTERISTICS
- much of the research is not controlled for all variables, so it is not always possible
to establish cause and effect
- Every person’s idea of attractiveness is different
- Actual jury are subject to a range of factors that can influence their decision
making
- Other factors include past victimisation, which may lead to some biased views
- Experiments testing the effect of accent and race were conducted in labs which
lack ecological validity
- However, labs allow for control over extraneous variables and can be more
focused on changing certain factors such as accent, which wouldn’t be as
noticeable in a real courtroom.
Mock Jury Research as a method for studying jury decision making
EVALUATION
- lack of ecological validity
Ruva et al. (2007)

Aim: to see the effects of pre-trial publicity on the decisions of jury in court
Expert Testimony
PENROD AND CUTLER (1989)
AIM: To investigate whether the presence of an expert witness would affect the
juror’s decision making ability.
PROCEDURE;
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538 undergraduate psychology students watched a realistic videotaped trial entered
around eyewitness evidence. The jurors were either shown or not show expert
testimony clips in the video. The participants rated the credibility of the eye
witnesses.
Laboratory experiment using a videotape mock trial of a robbery.
The sample consisted of undergraduate psychology students as mock jurors and

experienced jurors. 538 undergraduates were given extra credit
They were divided into groups of 2-8 and were then shown a videotape of a
robbery.
There were 4 indeprended variables
1 Witness identifying conditions (good/poor)
In the good condition the robber didn’t have a gun or any disguise. There was a 2 ay
delay in the witness providing identification. In the poor condition, the robber had a
gun and wore a disguise. There was a 14 day delay in this condition.
2 Witness confidence (good/poor)
In the good condition, witnesses claimed to be 100% confident and in the poor
condition, they claimed to be only 80% confident
3 Expert opinion expressed (High/Low)
The expert witness would rate the eyewitness on a scale of 0-25. In conditions
where the robber was easy to identify, they would give a high rating, and where the
robber was hard to identify, they would give a low rating
4 Form of Expert Testimony (Descriptive vs Statistical)
In the descriptive condition, the expert used ordinary language, whereas in the
statistical condition, the psychologist stated statistics and used more jargon.
Then participants had to decide whether or not the defendant was guilty or not, say
how confident they were in this decision and provide memory of the trial and the
expert testimony
RESULTS
Results show that the presence of expert testimony improved sensitivity to

eyewitness evidence
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Participants who did not hear expert advice put more weight on witnessing and
identification conditions than the confidence of the witness
Jurors gave more guilty verdicts when witness identification conditions were good.
This increased if the expert used simple language.
Jurors expressed more confidence when eyewitnesses claimed to be 100%

confident
85% of the jurors remembered the trial accurately. They recalled correctly what the
expert said about weapon focus, disguises and delays.
CONCLUSIONS
Expert testimony did not cause ppts to be more skeptical of the eyewitness
evidence
The expert testimony did improve the knowledge of ppts on how important some
factors are on weighing the eyewitnesses information
Expert testimony should be used
Simple lexicon makes ppts more knowledgeable
EVALUATION
Ecological validity is the biggest issue - ppts were divided into groups of 2-8 when
real Jurys consist of 12 members. This is not representative of a real trial
The jury saw the crime on VIDEO which would not happen in a regular trial.
The task of watching a video lacks internal validity as this is not normally how a jury
would make a decision in a trial
Demand characteristics - the ppts course result would be affected by their

participation
Ethnocentrism - only used American students
Quantitative data was used which is easy to analyse and compare, which makes it
easy to establish cause and effect
The lack of qualitative data does not provide us with enough detail with which we
could further understand the juror’s verdicts.
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Ethics in criminal psychology
BPS has produced guidance for those wanting to undertake psychological research
or engage in clinical practice such as psychological formulations.
- Protection of the participant. Participants should be allowed to withdraw from the

experiment if they were victims to a crime.
- Deception and consent
- Right to withdraw
- Confidentiality
Theories of attachment 1
Evaluation of Learning Theories 1
Bowlby’s theories of attachment 1
Bowlby’s stages of attachment 2
Evaluation of Bowlby 2
Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis 3
44 Thieves (Bowlby 1944) - Support for Maternal Deprivation

Hypothesis 3
Ainsworth’s work on attachment 6
Evaluation of Ainsworth 9
CASSIBA ET AL (2013) 12
VAN IZENDOORN AND KROONENBERG (1988) 13
DING ET AL (2014) 14
CROSS CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF ATTACHMENT 16
Ethnographic fieldwork 16
Jean Piaget’s Theory 17
Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development 17
Behaviourist Approach - Skinner and Bandura 19
CHOMSKY’S THEORY - (LAD) 21
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY 22
PIAGET’S THEORY OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT 24
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ERIKSON’S STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT 25
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY 28
THE PYGMALION EFFECT 29
Social Learning Theory as an explanation of the role of the media and

anti social behaviour 29
ASPD - Antisocial personality disorder 30
Treating offenders 30
Anger management 31
PSYCHOLOGY (CASE) FORMULATION 32
COGNITIVE INTERVIEWS 33
EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY 34
WEAPON FOCUS 35
LEADING QUESTIONS CAN ALSO INFLUENCE EYE WITNESS

MEMORY AND PRODUCE ERRORS IN RECALL 35
LOFTUS AND PALMER (1974) 36
WHAT INFLUENCES THE COURT PROCESS? 37
DEFENDANT CHARACTERISTICS 38
Mock Jury Research as a method for studying jury decision making 39
Ruva et al. (2007) 39
Expert Testimony 39
Ethics in criminal psychology 42
43

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Child and Criminal Psychology Unit 3 PDF

Child Health Psychology (Durham University)

Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university

Monday, 16 December 2019

Psychology Unit 3 - Child Psychology

- Classical Conditioning (learning by association)

- Operant Conditioning (learning by rewards/punishment)

Evaluation of Learning Theories

- Scientiﬁc and plausible explanation for attachment

- O’Connor (2013) implemented a SLT-based program which improved parent-child

- Bowlby (1944) would argue that attachment is an innate process

Bowlby’s theories of attachment

Imprinting : a pre programmed behaviour that created a bond between an animal

- there is a critical period for imprinting (12-24 hours)

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Bowlby’s stages of attachment

- Secure attachment requires for aﬀection to be mutual

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- 44 Thieves supports his Maternal Deprivation hypothesis

Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis

44 Thieves (Bowlby 1944) - Support for Maternal Deprivation

Aim : To investigate the long term consequences of deprivation and to provide

Retrospective study comparing experiences of prolonged separation separation

Unstructured interviews were used

Checklist to diagnose aﬀectionless psychopathy

17/44 of the juvenile thieves had experienced maternal deprivation

Of these 17, 12 were classiﬁed as aﬀectionless

- He constructed the interviews himself so he can be criticised for researcher bias

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- Triangulation was used which increase validity

Short term eﬀects of separation (Robertson’s research into protest, despair

Robertson and Bowlby (1952)

2. Despair - become increasingly hopeless, withdrawn, apathetic and demonstrated

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Deprivation, according to Rutter, is the loss of an attachment. This could be due to

William Goldfarb studied deprivation.

He studies 15 Institutionalised children and compared them to a control group of

EVALUATION OF LONG TERM EFFECTS OF DEPRIVATION

there is only a relationship between separation and juvenile behaviour so we cannot

Goldfarb acknowledged that maybe impoverished environments with a lack of

COUNTERARGUMENT OF LONG TERM EFFECTS

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This normally occurs when a child experiences extreme neglect.

- The Case of Genie is an example of the irreversible eﬀects of privation

The Czech twins is an example of the reversible eﬀects of privation as long as

Ainsworth’s work on attachment

Strange Situation Procedure

(2) Mother and baby alone.

(3) A stranger joins the mother and infant.

(4) Mother leaves baby and stranger alone.

(5) Mother returns and stranger leaves.