Exam 9: Psychosocial Theories: Individual Traits and Criminal Behavior

Which of the following is associated with increased risk of criminality?

People who have lower levels of empathy and altruism are at a higher risk for antisocial behavior.

______ is defined as behavior that inflicts physical or mental harm or property loss or damage on others.

Identify the measures of temperament and environment used by Veenstra et al.in their study on temperament-by-environment interactions.Were there significant interactions between temperament and environment? Support your answer.

______ is a primary trait composed of several secondary traits such as well organized, disciplined, scrupulous, responsible, and reliable at one pole, and disorganized, careless, unreliable, irresponsible, and unscrupulous at the other.

______ theory argues that criminal behavior is a general pattern of life characterized by irresponsibility, impulsivity, self-indulgence, and negative interpersonal relationships.

The ______ effect refers to the phenomenon of genetics and environment tending to be matched, so that a person's genetic advantage or disadvantage intellectually will tend to be magnified over time due to environmental influences.

Psychologists refer to the different components of one's personality as ______.

Define and discuss the traits associated with criminal behavior.Which traits are positively associated with offending? Which traits are negatively associated with offending?

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) carries out the basic housekeeping functions of the body by funneling subconscious messages from the environment to the various internal organs so that they may keep us in a state of biological balance.

Describe in detail the relationship that has been found between personality and crime.What are the policy implications of this perspective?

Prefrontal cortex dysfunction is the underlying neural structure responsible for the development of psychopathic tendencies.

Not all psychopaths are violent and incarcerated criminals.

Which of the following is the tendency to act without giving much thought to the consequences?

Briefly define sensation seeking.

_____ can be thought of as the action component of empathy; if you feel empathy for someone, you will probably feel motivated to take some sort of action to alleviate that person's distress.

Identify two personality traits that have been found to have a strong relationship to criminality.

Briefly explain the two factors considered in the two-factor model of the PCL-R.

The regulator of cognitive arousal is the ______.

According to Freudian theory, the id is the component of a person's personality that is responsible for balancing the demands of the ego and superego.