WJEC A Level Psychology Criminal Behaviours Exam Questions

About WJEC A Level Psychology Criminal Behaviours

Criminal behaviours is one of the six options in WJEC Unit 3 Section A, where you write structured essays on three behaviours. The specification wants the characteristics of crime, biological, individual differences and social psychological explanations, and an evaluation of ways to reduce offending in terms of effectiveness, ethics and social implications. This page starts with learning in social groups, since Sutherland's theory and normalisation explain how crime becomes routine, then moves to personality and finally to genes and the brain. Raine et al. (1997), the Unit 1 biological classic, gives you ready-made evidence on the amygdala, so practise using it here.

What you need to know

• What counts as crime Crime is behaviour prohibited by law and so changes between societies and over time. Official statistics capture only recorded offences, so victim surveys and self-report studies are used to estimate the 'dark figure' of hidden crime.
• Differential association Sutherland's theory holds that offending is learned through communication in close personal groups. People learn both the techniques of crime and the motives and attitudes behind it, and become offenders when definitions favourable to law-breaking outweigh unfavourable ones. Farrington's Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development found that having a convicted father strongly predicted a boy's own offending.
• Normalisation and gender socialisation Normalisation describes how repeated exposure within a family, peer group or organisation makes deviant acts feel ordinary. Gender socialisation suggests boys are encouraged to be tough and risk-taking while girls are more closely supervised, which may help explain the much higher male offending rate.
• Eysenck, IQ and psychopathy Eysenck (1964) linked offending to high extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism and an under-aroused nervous system that conditions poorly. Hirschi and Hindelang (1977) argued low IQ predicts delinquency as well as class does. Psychopathy, assessed with Hare's 20-item PCL-R, combines callousness and lack of remorse with an impulsive lifestyle.
• Inherited criminality Christiansen (1977) studied Danish twins and found higher concordance for criminality in identical (about 35%) than non-identical (about 13%) male pairs. Adoption studies such as Mednick et al. (1984) also suggest an inherited component.
• Disinhibition and the amygdala The disinhibition hypothesis argues alcohol weakens prefrontal control over impulses, making aggression more likely in provoking situations. Raine et al. (1997) found abnormal amygdala asymmetry in murderers, and Pardini et al. (2014) found men with smaller amygdala volume were more likely to show aggression and violence in later years.
• Restorative justice and anger management Restorative justice brings victim and offender together, with a facilitator, so harm can be acknowledged and repaired; Shapland et al. (2008) reported lower reoffending and high victim satisfaction in UK schemes. Anger management, based on Novaco, helps offenders spot their triggers, learn coping skills and rehearse them through role play.

Common mistakes in Criminal Behaviours

• Saying alcohol makes everyone violent. The disinhibition hypothesis predicts aggression mainly when the situation is provoking and when self-control was already weak.
• Confusing psychopathy with psychosis. Psychopathy is a personality pattern of callousness and manipulation; psychosis involves losing contact with reality.
• Concluding that low intelligence causes crime. The link may reflect detection bias, because less able offenders may be caught more often, or shared factors such as poverty.
• Writing that differential association means learning crime from TV or strangers. Sutherland stressed learning within intimate, personal groups such as family and friends.
• Assuming anger management suits every offender. It targets reactive, angry offending and has less to offer for planned, instrumental crimes such as fraud.

Try three Criminal Behaviours exam-style questions