Psychological Theory

Psychological Theory

Criminology is not an old science. It is possible to say that the steps of this creation started long before its official definition as a science. The necessity of this science is especially high nowadays when the level of crime has risen in every corner of the planet. Explaining human behavior has already become a responsibility for many scientists around the world. Criminology has several different factors that especially influenced its development. And one of those factors is the theories. One theory that I was most interested in was the Psychological Theory.

The main idea of the Psychological Theories is that potential criminal behavior is the result of stable psychological trait of a person. These personality characteristics are the ones to push people towards committing crimes and demonstrating deviant behavior. The psychological theories emphasize the meaning of extraversion, neuroticism, psychotism, and many others that conduct of a man. According to the psychological theories the disposition to crime is the result of inadequate socialization. They consider the social factor to be one of the most important ones in terms of inclination to deviance. Among the numerous psychological theories it is important to point out Sigmud Freud's and Erik Erikson's pyschodynamic theories, Skinner's operant conditioning, Albert Bandura's social learning theory and the theory of moral development based on kohbery's and Piagets stages of development. Freud felt the problem of possible personality imbalance based on the functioning Id, Ego and Superego resulting in the repression which can later fall into criminal behavior. Erikson made an emphasis on the child development. He was particularly anxious or concerned about the problem of identity diffusion which resulted in excessively self-conscious people who are overly concerned with sexuality. Erikson pointed out the problem of unfulfilled expectations which form a negative identity. In its turn this negative identity when possessed by a person make him want show it out and the most common way to do it is to rebel against everything. The rebel against social norms is a bright example of how negative identity can result in criminal behavior. This theory performs a perfect base of how deviance can be stopped at an early age.

The next major theory to mention is Skinner's operant conditioning theory which is founded on the standard scheme of stimulus reaction. According to Skinner the reward-based actions can form the desired behavior of a person and therefore also provide important information in terms of the prevention of criminality. Bandura in his psychological social learning or also known as the social learning theory states "learning would be exceedingly laborious...if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do...from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on the later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for actions" (Bandura, 22) Bandura claimed that modeling plays the most important role in the behavior formation.

Kohlberg's theory of moral development is based on the thoughts revealed in the works of Jean Piaget. According to Kohlberg every individual passed six stages throughout his development as a personality. Each of the stages belongs to a definite level, so Kohlberg marked out three levels: pre-conventional level, conventional level and the post-conventional level. Each of the three levels has its own social orientation. The diapason of the social orientations varies from obedience and punishment, and ends up with principled conscience. If something is missed along the way principled conscience is never achieved and therefore the adult person

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