How Psychological Research Has Helped in the Understanding of Criminal Behaviour Essay

Albert Bandura bring aboutd the bobo doll test in 1961, the aim of this look into was to show that if churlren where witnesses to ravening displays by an bragging(a) of rough sort they would imitate this deportment when given an opportunity. The tested group contained 36 young girls and 36 young boys either in all aged amid 4 and 5 years which was consequently divided into 3 groups of 24 the pugnacious fountain, the non pugnacious condition and the control group. The first group involved the children observation rough models, where the children where then subdivided by finish of the reference model they were opened to.The second group involved the children watched non aggressive models, where the children were too subdivided by the sexual urge of the graphic symbol model which they were open(a) to. This left the two conditioned groups subdivided into octet experi handstal groups each containing 6 subject fields. They were 6 boys with the same sex model, 6 bo ys with blow model, 6 girls with the same sex model and 6 girls with the opposite model. With 3 different groups, Bandura had created a complicated design for the cultivation which resulted in 3 independent variables the conditions the children were exposed to, the sex of the child and the sex of the role model.Each child was then tested individually and the findings where then record. The sample was done in an artificial environment and the researcher manipulated the independent variables into the conditions. In face one of the experiment, the children were brought into the experimental populate by the examiner. The path was limit up come in as a nursery play room since that was the seize setting for the age of the children. One corner of the room had been arranged as a childs play area consisting of a subaltern table and chair and picture stickers.In the opposite corner of the room was where the adult models would be followed by a small table and chair, putter toy set and a five foot bobo doll. In the aggressive condition the model began by playing with the tinker toy set save after a couple minutes the model turned its attention to the bobo doll and was aggressive towards the doll in a genuinely distinctive focussing. Were as in the non aggressive condition the model ignore the bobo doll and played with the tinker toys in a gentle manner. by and by 10 minutes the children where then interpreted into new room.In stage two of the experiment the children were brought into a room with relativity attractive toys. In this room the children were to be subjected to mild antagonism arousal. Once the children started to play with the toys, the experimenter took them dour the children claiming they had been reserved for the other(a) children. The children were then taken into the last and final room for stage three of the experiment. In this room the children were told they could play with any toys in there, the toys in stage three consisted of bo th non aggressive and aggressive toys.The children were unploughed in the room for 20 minutes where observations were made through with(predicate) a one way mirror by settles. With the observation and findings of this experiment, three measures of untrue were obtained. For this accept the observers looked specifically for chemical reactions from the children that were very similar to the display by the adult model. They included take-off of fleshly aggression, mistaken of verbal aggression and imitation of non verbal aggression.With these observations, the researchers were able to consider which children imitate the models, which models the children imitated and whether the children showed a general amplification of aggressive demeanour. The main findings of this translate were that the children in aggressive model condition made more aggressive responses than the children in the non aggressive condition. They alike contain up that the boys made more aggressive respo nses than girls, as well as the sex of the children being more aggressive if the model was of the same sex.These findings support Banduras social learning theory that children learn social behaviour through observation learning, which children learn through imitation. This account has helped in the understanding of brutal behaviour as children learn through imitation and the environment which they fix up in collapse an effect on their behaviour. If a child has been brought up around abuse, outlaw activity or consistent aggression then the child is most likely to offend by imitating their role model which could be a parent, sibling or flat nevertheless a role model which they look up to.Philip Zimbardo (1971) Stanford prison house experiment Dr Philip Zimbardo created the Stanford prison experiment in 1971, the aim of this experiment was to find out the mental effects of prison life, and to what extent prat moral quite a little be seduced to act immorally. The claim con sisted of 24 students selected out of 75, the roles of these 24 men were randomly assigned, 12 to play prison guards and 12 to play prisoners. The prison set up was built inside the Stanfords psychological department, doors where taken of laboratory rooms and re determined with steel bars in order to create cells.At the end of the corridor was the small opening which became the solitary confinement for the foul prisoners. Throughout the prison there were no windows or clocks to judge the passage in time, which resulted in time distorting experiences. After only a few hours, the participants altered to their roles well beyond expectations, the officers starting displaying authorisation and subject most of the prisoners to humiliation and torture whilst the prisoners developed passive attitudes towards the guards and accepted the physical abuse that was given to them.On the second day with surprise an unpredicted rebellion broke out, reinforcement was called and more guards where t o be on craft however the prisoners refused to leave their cells, barricading themselves in. This early in to the experiment the prisoners had already snarl a loss of identity to the extent they started to refer to themselves as their confidence game number rather than name. Even Dr Zimbardo him egotism started to lose sight of his role in the experiment believing he was in fact a prison superintendent rather than a psychologist.Due to the extent of the rebellion the guards were hale to show more authority over them which led to the creation of the favor cell. In order to break down the superior inmates the guards placed the good prisoners in the privileged cell for a few hours, then placed the good prisoners back into the bad cells causing confusion deep down the inmates, breaking the trust and isolating them. Within a week the matter was abandoned as the experiment was no longer a honest simulation, instead the guards saw the prisoners as troublemakers they were made out t o be.In response to this they began stepping up control, surveillance and aggression whilst the prisoner started breaking down emotionally being unable to handle the business office anymore. From the observations and information given by Dr Zimbardos reports, this study has helped in the understanding of vicious behaviour as it relates to imitation and conformity. The guards imitated the behaviour of satisfying guards adapting the role quiet promptly. The prisoners overly adapted the role quickly falling into depression and conforming to each other.This also helps how a someone mental state send word change their behaviour, with the prisoners they in short became depressed and mentally unstable, and this shows that when put into a certain(p) disciplinary situation the mind adapts causing them to act immorally. Solomon Ashce (1951) Conformity experiment- Solomon Ashce conducted the conformity experiment in 1951. The aim of this experiment was to investigate the extent of soci al pressure from a volume group burn affect a individual to conform. For this experiment Ashe used a lab experiment. Ashe used 8 participants for this experiment, 7 confederates and 1 naive participant.The 7 confederates had previously agreed to what their responses would be when presented with the line task. thus far the real participant had no knowledge of this and was led to believe that the other 7 participants were also real. With this experiment each soul had to state loud which line was most like the target line, (A, B or C). The resolvent was always an obvious one. The real participant always gave his or her closure last in order to see if they conformed or not. In some trials, the confederates gave the wrong answer whereas in some they gave the correct obvious answer.In the experiment there was 18 trials altogether and the confederates gave the wrong answer 12 out of the total 18. Ashce main observation was to find out if the real participant would end up conformin g based on the majority views given by the other 7 participants. The results were then drawn up and out of the 18 trails, around 75% of the trials the real participant conformed even though he or she knew the answers were wrong. From the observations, this study has helped in the understanding of criminal behaviour as it explains that criminals may have previously been highly exposed to such aggressive behaviour causing them to conform.This shows that publicly any bloodline of aggressive behaviour or criminal activity can unfold to conformity causing more criminal behaviour. Anderson and Dill (2000) Violence in pic games study- Both Anderson and Dill conducted the relation between violence and pictorial matter games study in 2000. The aim of this study was to find out how convulsive motion picture games relate to aggressive behaviour. Their first study consisted of 227 students which were given a questionnaire in order to get data on their aggressive behaviour patterns.This study looked at the long-term exposure to video games and what effect it has on aggression towards citizenry. The findings of the first study relating to the questionnaire came back with positive relations between the violence portrayed in video games and aggressive behaviour. The second study which Anderson and Dill conducted was to approach the impact that video games have on aggressive thoughts, social view and mood of a person. This study consisted of 210 students which were given a choice of 2 video games a non slam-bang game Myst or a violent active video game Wolfstein 3D.With the non violent game the objective was to travel the island of Myst, finding clues and making your own polish depending on the journey you took. With the violent game the objective was to eliminate the adversary Adolf Hitler choosing your own hero and variety of weapons. With each game the students were allocated 3 slots for a period of 15minutes each. The findings of this study concluded Anderson and Dills knowledge and opinions that those exposed to the violent video game gained more aggressive behaviour than those who were not exposed to violence.From the observations, this study has helped in the understanding of criminal behaviour as it states that playing video games may increase aggressive behaviour because the violent acts are continually repeated throughout the game. Video games also encourage players to identify and interact through role play of their favourite fibres causing them to imitate the character they are playing. Referring to first person in a game, it causes lead players to make their own decisions in the game affecting the actions of the character.Anderson and Dills studies show that after a limited amount of time playing violent video games, a player can start to self-activatingally prime aggressive thoughts which can lead to aggressive behaviour. This shows that continually playing violent video games can affect a persons thought patters leading to au tomatic aggressive behaviour through imitation of their favourite characters which could lead to criminal activity. Jahoda name study (1954)- Jahoda created the name study or as it is also called the self fulfilling prophecy.Jahoda studied the Ashanti tribe bulk who gave their boys soul names depending on what day of the week they were born(p). For example, boys born a Monday were expect to be peaceable and full of good, whereas boys born on Wednesday which were called Kwaku were expected to be aggressive and quick tempered. Jahoda base that when face at prison and tourist court records 13. 5% of boys that had been referred to court to court where from boys that were born on Wednesday, yet they were responsible for over 22% of violent crimes which was significantly high than would be expected and shows that Wednesdays boys tended to live up to their reputation.However as for the boys born on Monday, they found that only 6. 9% of all juvenile cases where of minor offences. Thi s implies that stereotypes of the boys behaviours depending on which day of the week they were born caused them to live up to expectations of their names. Jahoda concluded from all this that there was indeed nought magical about the day of the week the boys were born on but of effect of expectations has on a persons behaviour. From the observations and findings, this study has helped in the understanding of criminal behaviour as it linkups to the effect of reformation and the study of the self fulfilling prophecy.If the offenders have the expectation that they should behave in such a way, rehabilitation may be more difficult. Overall the psychological theory of criminal behaviour suggests that negative expectations cause curtains to behave towards others in a specific way because their stereotypes self fulfilling prophecy. Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) self-importance fulfilling prophecy- Both Rosenthal and Jacobson also conducted a self fulfilling prophecy study and the way th at people behave correspond to profiling or being unimaginative in 1968.Their study was conducted on students in a splitroom which was also known as the Pygmalion in the classroom. The students were then put into groups of what the students recover they will achieve, where they were then treated in a way that their world power group could achieve. All students completed an IQ test before the study. The findings of this study concluded Rosenthal and Jacobsons theory that when people are put into groups or have been stereotyped into a group can cause peoples behaviour to change as they will live up to the expectations of the stereotype.The findings found were that after two years the students that were put into the group for higher levels achieved higher than the other students in any other group. These students were known to have been given additional feedback and extra attention so the finding expected had were correct. From the findings, this study has helped in the understand ing of criminal behaviour as it shows that when categorised into a stereotype, people soon learn to live up to that expectation, behaving in a certain way.This also has an impact on a persons self esteem, causing them to act undesirably and maybe even lead them to turn to crime. Eden (1990) Self fulfilling prophecy- Eden also conducted the self fulfilling prophecy study in 1990, this study explains why some people turn to crime due to the way they have been stereotyped or labelled into a certain group. For this study, Eden looked at the training of gm Israeli soldiers and had them organised into 29 platoons. Some platoon trainers were told their groups were to a higher place the average potential difference but other trainers were told nothing.The findings of this study showed that after 10 weeks the performance of all soldiers were assessed and was found that on both the written exam and weapon test, the soldiers who had been told they were above the average potential did over all better than others, even though all soldiers were at an average level. These findings concluded Edens expectations that when labelled into a certain group, a person can adjust to behave according to expectations within the labelled group.This study has helped in understanding of criminal behaviour as it shows the stereotypes and labelled groups can influence a persons self esteem leading them to behave in a certain way and if the stereotype is negative it can cause a person to turn to crime. Sheehan (1983) TV violence and aggression Sheehan conducted the TV violence and aggression study in 1983. This study consisted of a group of middle class children aged between 5 and 10 to help find the link between childrens TV aftermath and aggressive behaviour.Throughout the study data was gathered about the participants parents and the researchers also asked about the childrens aggressive fantasies to whether it would physically injure a person. Sheehan found that there were correlation s between viewing violence and peer rated correlations for children that were aged between 8 and 10, with the correlations being stronger for the boys than the girls. The results were recorded by looking whether the child injured of irritated another person.These findings can relate to the social learning theory as he found that boys were more likely to imitate male models but overall looking at the data Sheehan collected, those who watched violent TV and films became more aggressive towards others than those who did not. This study has helped in understanding of criminal behaviour as it shows that continuously reflexion violent and aggressive TV programmes can affect a persons thought patterns leading to automatic aggressive behaviour and imitation of their favourite characters which could lead to criminal activity.