Traits Features Evident in Berts Case - Essay Example

Psychology of crime case study Name: Professor: Institution: Course: Date of submission: Length: 2500 words There are several factors that could lead an individual to committing a crime. These factors are endorsed in our society, law enforcement system, political system, education system, culture, economy and others. Some of the reasons why people commit crimes could be as a result of revenge, jealously, greed, and pride. In this essay we will discuss how personality traits such as low self esteem, lack of self control, aggressiveness among other traits could lead to an individual like Bert committing a crime. The essay will particularly focus on describing the trait theories and concepts to explain Bert’s behavior. According to Hembree (2011), Traits are referred to as characteristics, features and properties that make a person distinct or unique from the rest and can be acquired or inherited from parents. Therefore, Trait theories are the study of personality-identification and measurement of these traits which are either present at the birth or over an individual’s lifespan. Unlike other personality theories, the trait theories concentrate more on individual differences (Cherry 2011). There are several features of traits which includes; traits are internal that is, they are within a family through genetically heritability. They are may change in strength but maintain relative strength compared with other making them enduring. They are also are consistent, they are assumed to be stable from one situation to the next. Other features includes quantitative and organised. (Cherry 2011) Traits features evident in Bert’s case Bert’s criminal behaviour says something fundamental about him, many of his traits are internal that is genetically inherited from his family and this is explained by the fact that his father had many prison sentences. We are told that two of his brothers have had to deal with the law with his eldest brother avoiding trouble with the law for the last six years and trying to at least settle down while his other brother is in prison charged with armed robbery. His criminal behaviour becomes enduring over time. Bert’s criminal behaviour started when he was fourteen years old and since then he has spent most of this life time in prison charged with the same offence. He has also been accused of other but it seem that the offence of break, steal and enter has intensively grown in strength compared to other crimes. Also, Bert’s traits are consistent becoming stable from one situation to next. He has consistently been accused of stealing, break and enters offence. In the latest incident we are told that when the police learnt that the garage had been broken in to they immediately suspected Bert since he had previously accused of the same crime. This clearly indicates the consistent of his crime behaviour is well known. Eysenck‘s Personality Theory. This theory suggests that criminal behavior could be as a result of personal traits possessed by individuals. Eysenck came up with two dimensions of people: Neuroticism (N) and Extraversion (E). N can be defined as the level of one’s emotional stability. People with high N usually have unstable moods, anxiety and depression while people with low N are usually have emotional stability. The E refers to the amount of stimulation one requires from the environment. People with high E require a lot of stimulation while someone with low E requires little stimulation. (Putwain 2002) He concluded that N and E are related to the properties of the Central Nervous System (CNS). N relates to a stability of an individual’s Central Nervous System. The nervous system of people whose N is high reacts strongly to stimuli. Due to anxiety, people with high N have a difficulty learning socially appropriate behavior through reinforcement and punishment. E relates to the autonomic arousal. The lower the E the more stimulation one requires from their environment. High E is related to under arousal leading to crime. A person with high N and E was more likely to be involved in a criminal behavior. (Putwain 2002) A combination of these two traits will result to a person seeking stimulation and excitement because they have a high score of E and they never learn from their mistakes and punishment they get due to the high score of N. The theorist later suggested that there existed a third dimension known as pyschoticism (P). P is associated with troublesomeness, aggressiveness, and lack of empathy. People with high score of E have very poor social judgment. Here is a summary of Eysenck‘s Personality Theory. Extraversion Neuroticism Psychoticism sociable Depressed Aggressive irresponsible Anxiety Assertiveness active Moody Impulsive dominant Tense Tough-minded expressive Guilt Feelings Manipulative Source: Ellen et al. (2008) How would Eysenck‘s Personality Theory apply to Bert’s case? Bert can be classified as an Extravert. He is someone who is easy going, lively, sociable, irresponsible and excitable. This is well illustrated by the way he behaved on the night he committed the current offence. He went to the pub with no intention of committing a crime where he bumped into his old friends which means that he is very sociable. Bert and his two other friends spent the whole night in the pub drinking and towards the closure of the pub, one of his friends said that he knew of a factory nearby where they could go and break into and make some easy pickings. After their friend had persuaded them, Bert agreed to join them in the crime. He says that he don’t know how things happened so fast but says he was under the influence of alcohol and his friends. He insists that on that night of the crime, he had gone to simply have his drink and have a good time but did not intend to commit any offence. This indicates that he is easy going and excitable. Based on this evidence, we can conclude that Bert has a high score of high score of Extraversion. This means that he has under arousal hence leading to criminal behaviour. Bert can be said to have a high level of Neuroticism. He has a difficulty learning socially appropriate behaviour (not stealing) through reinforcement and punishment and hence will have a high probability of being involved in a criminal behaviour. Before the current offence, Bert had just been released from prison nine weeks ago after being accused of the same offence of possessing stolen goods. Bert has been accused of criminal offences since he was a teenager and has had to go to boys’ home, juvenile and even adult institutions. It is clear that he has difficulties trying to stop the habit of stealing even through prison punishment. We can also say that Bert has pyschoticism in him. Psychoticism(P) is said to be largely genetic and persons with high scores of P are likely to be involved in criminal . Looking back at Berts Family all of them have had a criminal record. We are told that two of his brothers have had to deal with the law with his eldest brother avoiding trouble with the law for the last six years and trying to at least settle down while his other brother is in prison charged with armed robbery. Bert’s sister has no criminal record but her husband has one. His father never had time for his family since his spent the better part of his life serving prison sentences. Psychoticism is also associated with impulsiveness and poor social judgement leading to crime. At the time of the current offence, Bert had been released from prison nine weeks ago and he had made a promise to both his wife and children that he would live upright and avoid trouble with the law. He had tried to keep his promise and even found himself a job as a constructer but he found the systems and routines constricting. He insists that on that night of the crime, he had gone to simply have his drink and have a good time but did not intend to commit any offence. Bert and his two other friends spent the whole night in the pub drinking and towards the closure of the pub, one of his friends said that he knew of a factory nearby where they could go and break into and make some easy pickings. After their friend had persuaded them, Bert agreed to join them in the crime. He says that he don’t know how things happened so fast but says he was under the influence of alcohol and his friends. The police also regard Bert as someone who is easily led meaning that he has poor social judgment. Allport’s Trait Theory (1939) According to Cherry (2011) Gordon Allport was the American psychologist to concentrate his study on traits. His study emphasized more on distinct features of an individual at the present as opposed to past. To understand the uniqueness of an individual Allport, classified traits into three types; cardinal traits, central traits and secondary traits. Cardinal traits are regarded to be very basic and control an individual’s life, it explains how an individual behave in all situations. These traits become a part of them to an extent that people recognized them by these traits. They are not common and appear later in life. Central traits are general features that an individual have across most situations. Even if these traits do control an individual’s life as compared to cardinal traits, they might be used by your friends as core qualities to describe your personality. This trait may include honesty, shyness and intelligence. Secondary traits explain how one can behave in certain circumstances. How would Allport’s Trait Theory apply to Bert’s case? Bert traits would be best described as cardinal traits. His criminal behaviour has dominated his entire life. Bert has been accused of criminal offences since he was a teenager and has had to go to boys’ home, juvenile and even adult institutions. Most of his convictions were for property crimes, stealing, break and enter, possession of stolen good and the like although he also had convictions for traffic, minor drug (possession of marijuana), and minor assault offences making crime a basic value. To explain how he behaved in all situations. Bert had been released from prison nine weeks ago and he had made a promise to both his wife and children that he would live upright and avoid trouble with the law. He had tried to keep his promise and even found himself a job as a constructer but he found the systems and routines constricting. He insists that on that night of the crime, he had gone to simply have his drink and have a good time but did not intend to commit any offence. He was persuaded by his two friends to commit the offence and this shows how criminal behaviour has dominated his life and developed as he grew older. Five factor Model (Big five) According to Ellen et al. (2008), the five factor model by McCrae is the most acceptable trait theory currently. This theory builds on the insight of Eysenck and other trait theories where two of his dimensions are the same as those proposed by Eysenck theory. The Five factor models (Big Five) came up with 5 major dimensions of personality that form the acronym OCEAN that is, Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Openness refers to the level at which an individual is thoughtful and rational. It describes the level to which one is independent minded and imaginative. A creative person is perceived to have a high degree of openness. High score of openness is also associated with one being very talkative and look for complexity and are motivated to seek out the unfamiliar (curiosity). People with low scores of openness on the other hand are conservative, risk averse and cautious to change, prefer sameness and they are narrow-minded in their ideas. Such people also find systems and routines constricting. Conscientiousness can be defined as the level to which one is attentive and aware of others. People with high scores of conscientiousness tend to be reliable and efficient, persevering, organized, dutiful, ambitious self controlled and hardworking. On the other, people with low scores of conscientiousness are unreliable, lazy, prefer to work in a chaotic environment, and are spontaneous. Extraversion can be used to describe whether one’s energy is directed towards the inside or outwards. It refers to the energetic approach to the material and social world. People with high scores of this dimension are known as extroverts and possess characteristics such being sociable and active, talkative, persuasive, gregarious, enjoy having attention from others, they are indiscrete as well as impulsive, lack concentration on long routine tasks. People with low scores of extraversion are known as introverts. They have features such as being reserved and shy in the company of others, dislikes attention, ability to concentrate on long routine jobs, prefer environments that are calm and are even-tempered. Agreeableness refers to whether one is able to get along well with others. People with high scores of this dimension are tolerant of others, submissive; enjoy working in teams, consensus oriented, easygoing, empathetic, and seen as generous and kind by others. Those with low scores of this dimension are known to be independent, self reliant, suspicious, tough-minded, and unfriendly and are dominant team players. Neuroticism refers to the emotional stability of a person. People with high scores of Neuroticism are pessimistic, prone to anxiety under pressure, worrisome, hesitant, and temperamental and are unsure of self. People with low scores of this dimension are optimistic, able to cope with the unexpected, enjoys autonomy, have high self esteem, calm, even-tempered and relaxed. How would five factors Model (Big five) apply to Bert’s case? McCrae would predict that Bert would score low on openness and score high on extraversion and agreeableness. Bert and his two other friends spent the whole night in the pub drinking and towards the closure of the pub, one of his friends said that he knew of a factory nearby where they could go and break into and make some easy pickings. After their friend had persuaded them, Bert agreed to join them in the crime. This show that he is not independent minded but easy going. This also shows that he easily along with others and enjoys team work. Bert has low score of conscientiousness since he likes to work chaotic environments, For instance the drama involved in robbery. He had tried to keep his promise of living upright and even found himself a job as a constructer but he found the systems and routines constricting. He often never turned up for this particular job since he thought it was boring which indicates an element of being lazy. Bert can also score high on Neuroticism due his anxiety and difficulty in learning socially appropriate behavior through reinforcement and punishment. In conclusion, it is evident from the above concepts and trait theories that indeed possessing particular traits leads to criminal behaviour. Bert is not an exemption and it is because of possessing some of these traits that prompts him to continue behaving that way. References Cherry. K (2011). Trait Theory of Personality. Retrieved on 26th January 2011 from http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/trait-theory.htm Ellen E. Pastorino, Susann M. Doyle-Portillo (2008) What Is Psychology? Essentials. Retrieved on 26th January 2011 from http://books.google.com/books?id=PA4OxMTsEHwC&pg=PA455&dq=Gordon+Allport%E2%80%99s+Trait+Theory&hl=en&ei=rFQ5TdqQFcjR4gaappm7Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Gordon%20Allport%E2%80%99s%20Trait%20Theory&f=false Putwain. D, Sammons A (2002), Psychology and crime. Routledge, Canada. Retrieved on 26th January 2011 from http://books.google.com/books?id=ucGkLW4v94C&pg=PA38&dq=Eysenck’s+Personality+Theory&hl=en&ei=Iss Read More