Explanations for offending: Psychodynamic explanations - Forensic Psychology

a.     Inadequate Superego

3 types of inadequate superegos have been proposed:

The weak (under-developed) superego:
During the Phallic stage, there is an absence of a same-sex parent, and therefore the child cannot identify with them – this causes the ability to feel guilt and the ability to stop impulsive behaviour to become impaired: they are dominated by their ID’s impulses which leads them to become involved in criminal activity, mostly commonly theft and rape.

The deviant superego:
Their same-sex parent is immoral and so during the identification at the Phallic stage, they develop a moral code that is deviant – making them more prone to carrying out criminal activities.

The over-harsh (over-developed) superego:
This superego is demanding of guilt and therefore it causes them to seek out opportunities to satisfy their unconscious desire to be punished – leading them to engage in criminal activity.

However, many people without a same-sex parent to identify with still grow up to be perfectly law-abiding and so this explanation is unable to explain offending behaviour in everyone. This means the credibility needs to be questioned.

Freud believed that castration anxiety leads boys to develop a stronger superego than girls and therefore boys should be more moral. However, statistics suggest that males commit more crimes, which contradicts Freud’s view. This is further supported by Hoffman (1977) who suggests that females show a much stronger moral orientation compared to males, which, again, refutes Freud’s theory.

b.     Defense Mechanisms

Defense mechanisms are used by the unconscious mind to reduce anxiety.

Displacement: taking out anger and frustration on a substitute object. (eg. a man is angry at his girlfriend, so he goes out and stabs a stranger).

Rationalisation: explaining unacceptable behaviour in a rational and acceptable way (eg. a man wants to rape a ‘provocatively dressed’ women, and rationalizes it by saying that she is dressed that way and so she is asking for it, and it’s her own fault)

Defense mechanisms are unconscious and therefore cannot be tested. This means there is no empirical support for their existence – and this theory is unfalsifiable and therefore how can we be sure if this is a credible theory if it can never be proven correct or not?

c.      Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation

Bowlby argued that the early years of one’s life are vital in shaping the adult personality. He claimed that being deprived of a continuous and loving relationship with their mother (within the critical period of 2 years) would lead to irreversible, damaging consequences – including delinquency and affectionless psychopathy.

(could mention the 44 thieves study!)

This link between maternal deprivation and delinquency is purely correlational as we cannot establish a cause and effect relationship between the two. There may just be a 3^rd factor that affects the two similarly, without the two necessarily being linked at all.

Also, some delinquents in Bowlby’s 44 thieves study had not suffered maternal deprivation and therefore there must be other factors involved, which are not accounted for by Bowlby and therefore the full validity of this theory needs to be questioned.