Category: Developmental Psychology

Developmental psychology is the study of how and why humans change throughout their life (Hurlock, 2001). This explains criminal behaviour through several ways, mainly that criminal behaviour develops due to developmental problems such as attachment problems or poor social skills. Developmental psychology asks the question is a criminal born or made? By explaining criminal behaviour through developmental psychology, it helps to discover what are the main causes of criminal behaviour, therefore helping to stop and treat criminal behaviour appropriately. This essay will discuss the importance of developmental psychology to the criminal justice system. Criminal behaviour will be explained by using attachment and emotional, moral, and prosocial development. Language will also be included to explain problems that juvenile offenders face throughout the criminal justice system.

Attachment can be defined as an emotional bond that connects people (Ainsworth, 1973). The attachment theory provides a framework for understanding violence as it acknowledges both personal and developmental factors (Ogilvie, et al. 2014). Bowlby (1944) stated that delinquent and criminal behaviour may arise from a child being deprived of a maternal figure, which is called the maternal deprivation theory, as parents are usually the foundation for future relationships. This theory states that deprivation may occur when there is a parental figure present, but the child does not receive adequate care and has not formed a proper attachment with them (Ainsworth, 1962). Children who are not emotionally attached to warm and loving parents tend to become offenders (Bowlby, 1951). A lack of a mother can lead to the child’s hatred of women, causing crimes directed towards females, this can also be the case if the father is not in the picture, some children can blame their mothers. A poor family management in childhood has predicted violence in teenagers (Herrenkohl et al. 2000).

Ainsworth (1978) found that a child’s attachment is dependent on the behaviour their mother shows towards them. A less sensitive mother creates an insecurely attached child.

Poor parental supervision is the strongest predictor of offending (Smith & Stern, 1997). Many studies show that parents who do not know where their child is, or aren’t bothered, tend to have more delinquent children than parents who know where their child is.

Erratic or inconsistent discipline also predicts offending behaviour. Harsh parental discipline, involving physical punishment, predicts offending (Haapasalo & Pokela, 1999). Newson and Newson (1989) found that 40% of offenders in their study had been physically punished at age 11 compared to 14% who did not. McCord (1979) found that cold rejecting parents tend to have delinquent children. Parent warmth acts as a protective factor against physical punishment. During McCord`s study, they found that 51% of boys who had cold, rejecting, physically punishing mothers were convicted compared to 21% of boys with loving mothers.

Smallbone & Dadds (1998) found that sexual offenders reported less secure childhood maternal attachments than non-offenders. Intrafamilial child molesters reported having problematic relationships with their mothers whilst stranger rapists reported having problematic relationships with their fathers.

Prosocial development refers to behaviour which is meant to benefit others. Modelling by adults increase prosocial behaviour in children.

The role of empathy is to recognise another person’s emotional state of mind. Psychopaths are a group of offenders which are considered to lack empathetic understanding. Clerkley (1941) developed a `mask of sanity` which is a classification of specific psychopathic traits, including lacking moral and empathetic reasoning and an impaired theory of mind. Many offenders can be seen as lacking empathy or compassion for their victims. Therefore most treatment programmes for sexual offenders include some sort of empathetic training.

Theory of mind can be seen as understanding another person’s mental states to explain and predict their behaviour. Children develop this theory of mind when they’re young. However, Keenan and Ward (2000) propose hat sexual offenders have an impaired theory of mind, meaning it may not have been fully developed in childhood.

Kohlberg (1984) developed 3 stages of moral development. The first stage is preconventional morality, where children learn obedience and punishment. The second is conventional morality where good interpersonal relations are developed. The final is post conventional morality where universal principles and individual right are learnt. If there is a disturbance at any point during these developments, it may lead to offending behaviour.

How a criminal communicates is an important part of how the criminal justice system treats the criminal. Beitcham et al (1999) found that communication difficulties are often misinterpreted as non-compliance by the police, this is also backed up by Snow and Powell (2004). They stated that a juvenile offenders language impairments can affect police interviews, interviews with their lawyers and questioning in court as the offender either doesn’t understand or cant portray their answers correctly, this, therefore, can be misinterpreted as a lack of respect for authority which is then likely to lead to a poorer outcome in trial such as tougher sentences. These language difficulties are also usually accompanied with poor body language making the offender seem like they don’t care. These language problems can be causes by a number of things such as not being exposed to language before puberty (Lenneberg, 1967), parents act as models for language so if they have poor communication skills, so may the child (Skinner, 1957), or learning difficulties. Bryan et al (2007) found that young people who commit crimes usually have a history of poor social achievements and learning difficulties.

This essay shows how developmental psychology explains offending behaviour by exploring the attachment theory, prosocial development and how language can have an affect on the criminal justice system. This essay also highlights problems which can occur. Murray et al (2007) found that children of prisoners have twice the risk of antisocial behaviour, showing that the criminal justice system disrupts attachment relationships. However, developmental psychology only explains criminal behaviour in a social aspect and does not allow space for a biological cause of offending behaviour.

References

1. Ainsworth, M. (1973). Attachment as Related to Mother-Infant Interaction. Advances In The Study Of Behavior, 1-51. doi: 10.1016/s0065-3454(08)60032-7
2. Ainsworth, M. D. (1962). The effects of maternal deprivation: A review of findings and controversy in the context of research strategy. Public Health Papers, 14, 97-165.
3. Ainsworth, M. D., Blehar, M., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment.
4. Apperly, I. A. (2012). What is “theory of mind”? Concepts, cognitive processes and individual differences. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(5), 825-839.
5. Bowlby, J. (1944). Forty-four juvenile thieves: Their characters and home-life. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 25, 19-53.
6. Bowlby, J. (1951). Maternal care and mental health (Vol. 2). Geneva: World Health Organization.
7. Bryan, K., Freer, J., & Furlong, C. (2007). Language and communication difficulties in juvenile offenders. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 42(5), 505-520.
8. Cleckley, H. (1941). The mask of sanity: an attempt to reinterpret the so-called psychopathic personality. Mosby. St. Louis.
9. Haapasalo, J., & Pokela, E. (1999). Child-rearing and child abuse antecedents of criminality. Aggression and violent behavior, 4(1), 107-127.
10. Herrenkohl, T. I., Maguin, E., Hill, K. G., Hawkins, J. D., Abbott, R. D., & Catalano, R. F. (2000). Developmental risk factors for youth violence. Journal of adolescent health, 26(3), 176-186.
11. Hurlock, E. B. (2001). Developmental psychology. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
12. Johnson, C. J., Beitchman, J. H., Young, A., Escobar, M., Atkinson, L., Wilson, B., … & Wang, M. (1999). Fourteen-year follow-up of children with and without speech/language impairments: Speech/language stability and outcomes. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 42(3), 744-760.
13. Keenan, T., & Ward, T. (2000). A theory of mind perspective on cognitive, affective, and intimacy deficits in child sexual offenders. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 12(1), 49-60.
14. Kohlberg, L. (1985). Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. WC Crain, Theories of development, 118-136.
15. Lenneberg, E. H. (1967). The biological foundations of language. Hospital Practice, 2(12), 59-67.
16. McCord, J. (1979). Some child-rearing antecedents of criminal behavior in adult men. Journal of personality and social psychology, 37(9), 1477.
17. Murray, J., Janson, C. G., & Farrington, D. P. (2007). Crime in adult offspring of prisoners: A cross-national comparison of two longitudinal samples. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 34(1), 133-149.
18. Newson, J., & Newson, E. (1989). The extent of parental physical punishment in the UK (Vol. 7). Approach.
19. Ogilvie, C. A., Newman, E., Todd, L., & Peck, D. (2014). Attachment & violent offending: A meta-analysis. Aggression and violent behavior, 19(4), 322-339.
20. Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
21. Smallbone, S. W., & Dadds, M. R. (1998). Childhood attachment and adult attachment in incarcerated adult male sex offenders. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 13(5), 555-573.
22. Smith, C. A., & Stern, S. B. (1997). Delinquency and antisocial behavior: A review of family processes and intervention research. Social service review, 71(3), 382-420.
23. Snow, P., & Powell, M. (2004). Interviewing juvenile offenders: The importance of oral language competence. Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 16(2), 220-225.

Developmental psychology, in a few words, is a scientific approach for social and emotional growth usually practiced with children. The main features of development can be split four groupings, these are behaviour, socialisation, communication and cognition. The approach is to use a systemic method of intervention and healing, taking the individual through developmentally appropriate sequences needed to reach the identified new behaviour. This usually takes place during childhood as the most changes take place in this time.

In other words, many people who study developmental psychology believe that who and what an individual becomes later in life, depends solely on how and where they are developing from birth. They examine the influences of nature and nurture of the process of human development, as well as progressions of alteration in context over the course of the individual’s lifespan. For example, if a person could know the exact breakdown and facts of how to take care of a child, while they are still in the developmental stage, many of these developmental psychologists believe that a lot of problems they now face as adults, would not exist.

The first perspective of developmental psychology that I will be discussing is the biological approach, psychologists state that a child’s development is composed of specific pre-programed stages that can only be undone later in their life span. It is based around thoughts, behaviours and feelings that stem from a physical and biological standpoint. American psychologist Arnold Gesell specialised in the field of child development, however more specifically on how genes and the environment play a crucial role in shaping an individual’s life. Gesell argued against the idea that the development of a child had anything to do with external factors, rather than factors such as the growth of the child’s central nervous system as the main attribution.

The next perspective is cognitive, this specific approach focuses on the mind and more particularly on how it processes information.The theorist Piaget who had also studied the biological approach, had become intrigued with the way a child could think logically. Piaget’s theory differs from others as it centres around children and their learning rather than all age thinkers. Piaget based his theory around the result of biological maturation as well as the individuals environmental experience.

Through his study Jean Piaget had come to the conclusion that children’s intelligence grew through stages, he said there were four stages, the first which typically occurred from birth to about the age of 2 years is called the Sensorimotor stage.

This stage is described as the stage when the individual begins to experience the world, through senses and actions such as looking, touching and or mouthing. This is also the stage when the individual is supposed to experience object permanence, this means the individual who is at the sensorimotor stage begins to understand the existence of objects and the natural or unnatural occurrences in the world. For example, if you were to hide an object from the individual, either putting it on a shelf, obscuring it or hiding it under a pillow, they will be able to see that the object has been hidden but still exists.

Piaget (1963) did a study on this theory that has since been labelled the ‘Blanket and Ball Study’. The study revolves around the concept of object permeance, where Piaget would hide an object under a blanket to see whether or not the individual would realise it is still there, just obscured, or react as if the object had disappeared. Piaget’s results showed that infants from 8 months knew the object was being hidden and were able to create a representation of the object in their mind.

Another part of the sensorimotor stage is ‘stranger anxiety’, this is a type of stress that individual, usually infants, experience when in the presence of individuals that they consider strangers. This is due to their intellectual and emotionally development towards their parents and or primary caregivers. They develop a natural fear to individuals who they do not recognise, this is something that usually goes away on its own.

The next stage I will be discussing usually occurs from the ages of two to the ages of six, this stage is called Preoperational. This is usually the stage when the individual begins representing things through the use of words and images, however the individual still lacks logical thinking and reasoning. This is also the stage when the induvial begins to become more egocentric, the child has the inability to separate between others and themselves. Piaget describes this as the child assuming that the things they feel, see or hear are the exact same as others around them. This is also the stage where language development is supposed to take place.

The next stage takes place between the ages of seven and eleven and is called Concrete Operational, this is when the individual begins to think logically about concrete events, for example such as mathematical transformations, conversations and principles. This is also the stage where they begin grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations.

The final stage begins at the age of twelve and continues throughout adulthood, that stage is called Formal operational. This stage centres around abstract reasoning, this means the ability to process thoughts and ideas that are complex, this can also include language-based ideas. This can be demonstrated through abstract logic and potential for moral reasoning.

On the other hand, many believe that the idea is that in psychology, mostly including developmental psychology, are still in the age of the cognitive revolution. Which is, or has become, inspired by the “computer metaphor”, focusses on information processing and is searching for universal mental mechanisms. This has since led to a gradual decline and/or neglect some would say, of topics and paradigms, which are not at the heart of the cognitive “revolution”. This includes emotional and motivational processing, bodily processing (now reappearing under embodiment), individual differences and many others.

For example, for almost none of the major concepts of cognitive psychology like attention, memory, perception, action control and so on. You will find anything in a standard individual differences book, in those books it is almost as though like individual differences in those cognitive functions cease to exist. However, they do occur and play a major role later in the diagnostics of neuropsychological and developmental disorders.

Furthermore, cognitive psychologists are not really intrigued or interested by individual differences in their concepts, as they look for universal mechanisms. William Bechtel discusses this in his book on ‘Mechanisms in Cognitive Psychology: what are the operations?’

Individual differences psychologists are not intrigued much in cognitive concepts and this can be due to historic reasons. I personally believe that many psychologists, who define themselves as cognitive development researchers look for universal cognitive mechanisms underlying development, and are only truly interested in individual differences.

Developmental psychology also states that it helps individuals become more self-aware, it answers the question “why am I the way I am”, it can help you understand yourself and others as well as install self-awareness that can help you evolve as a person.

Developmental psychology is seen as such a important and imperative part of a child’s life as children are seen as unconsciously following the same parenting style they grew up in, unless they have that self-awareness installed in them and make conscious decision to be different than their own parents, however some children just don’t reach that awareness.

However, there are researchers that do believe that developmental psychology produces normative divisions among individuals. These divisions are not between “normal” and “abnormal”, but between “good” and “bad”.