biological and neural explanations of offending

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  • Created by: _marxlee
  • Created on: 02-05-17 08:06
What do genetic explanations for crime suggest?
Would –be offenders inherit a gene, or a combination of genes that predispose them to commit crime
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What do twin studies suggest?
Genes play a role in offending behaviour
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What did Christiansen find?
Used a sample of 3586 twin pairs and found a concordance rate of 33% for MZ and 12% for DZ twins
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What did Raine find?
Reviewed 13 twin studies and found an overall concordance rate of 52% for MZ twins and 21% for DZ twins
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What did Tihonen et al find?
A genetic analysis of just fewer than 900 offenders revealed abnormalities on two genes that may be associated with violent crime
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What are the two genes associated with violent crime?
MAOA gene and CDH13
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What has the MA0A gene been linked to?
Aggressive behaviour
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What has the CDH13 gene been linked to?
Substance misuse and attention deficit disorder
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What were the findings of Tihonen’s research?
Within the finish sample, individuals with this high-risk combination were 13 times more likely to have had a history of violent behaviour
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What is a critique of this research?
It was in its infancy and has, so far not been replicated
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What do neural explanations suggest?
There may be several neural differences in the brains of criminals and non-criminals
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What has most evidence in this area investigated?
Individuals diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder
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What is APD associated with?
Reduced emotional response and a lack of empathy
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Which areas of the brain regulate emotional behaviour?
Prefrontal cortex and the limbic system
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What did Adrian Raine aim to find in relation to the brain?
Whether there was any difference in the brain activity of murders or non-murders.
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What was the sample?
41 violent murderers and 41 non-violent murders using PET scanning techniques
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What did Raine find?
She found differences in the brain activity in the prefrontal cortex and areas of the limbic system including the amygdala.
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Why was it suggested that this area linked to aggressive and violent behaviour?
Because those areas regulate emotions
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What does serotonin do?
Regulate mood and impulse control
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What does low levels of serotonin mean?
Could be implicated in criminal behaviour as there will be more impulsivity
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What did Davidson et al find?
Violent criminals had markedly lower levels of serotonin to non-violent criminals
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What are some issues with research investigating the brain?
Sample sizes are often small as the target pop are hard to access as well as scanning techniques can be costly and time consuming. Effects the extent to which results can be generalised to the wider criminal population
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What are some issues with causation with genetic and neural explanations?
Not possible to conclude that these abnormalities are caused by biological factors or by early abuse. Demonstrates the difficulties with explaining offending behaviour from a purely neural and/or genetic viewpoint
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What are some problems with twin studies?
Genetic transmission can explain the higher concordance rate for MZ twins however it could be argued that the difference in concordance rates reflects the differences in the environment and experiences of MZ and DZ twins
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Which type of twins may be treated more similar to each other?
MZ
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How are twin studies an unusual sample?
They may not represent the rest of the population
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What does this mean?
Evidence gained on genetic influences may be difficult to generalise the criminal and non-criminal populations
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which did mednick et al find?
13,00 danish adoptees, when neither biological or adoptive parents had convictions, the percentage of adoptees that did was 13.5%. this figure rose to 20% when either of their biological parents had convictions and 24.% when both adoptive+biological
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what does this suggest?
although genetic inheritance plays an important role in offending, environmental influence cannot be disregarded which supports the diathesis stress model
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What do twin studies suggest?

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Genes play a role in offending behaviour

Card 3

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What did Christiansen find?

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Card 4

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What did Raine find?

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Card 5

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What did Tihonen et al find?

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