The Theory of Psychosexual Development and Humanistic Theories - Assignment Example

Freud’s theory asserts that crime is an act that is affected by mental disorder, which causes a conflict between the id, ego and superego, or it may result from an incorrect recording in one of the stages in development. The mental disorder is usually manifested as behavioural problems like social passivity or full aggression. The theory believes that criminal activities committed by individuals are due to personality defect that was affected and disrupted by lack of progressions during childhood developmental stage.

A pointing example is that a boy who commits the crime were twice more likely to have experienced severe punishments from their parents. Another study done on juvenile offenders showed that young offenders who were separated from their natural mothers were prone to delinquency in their adolescence stage. Such a study asserts that the association between a child in his/her tender age and their primary caregiver forms the baseline for personality and development in their moral behaviours in adulthood.

Defence mechanism as discussed by Freud has an influence in the development of criminal behaviour. For example, in a defence mechanism like displacement; an individual who gets frustrations from their employer may displace the hunger back to children at home by beating or verbally abusive. In addition, his action can lead to a misdemeanour like maim which is an offence. However, some defence mechanism like sublimation may prevent an individual from committing an offence. For example, an aggressive person who feels like killing people can go and work in an animal slaughterhouse and slaughter animals rather than kill human beings (Gedo, 2002).

Freud theory has some pros and cons. On the pros, the theory provides an insight as to why an individual is involved in criminal activity, and this can be used by a defence counsel in court to seek for the reduction of charges against an accused. However, the theory has cons in that it does not apply to all but it is too general and thus can be disputed in a court of law.Humanistic theories try to describe the people’s lives in an optimistic perspective in nature that people are good and have an innate need to make the world a better place.

The theory mostly focuses on human beings capability to think rationally and consciously. Maslow theory postulates that human beings are motivated to get full actualization in their lives once they have satisfied their basic needs. The theory states that basic needs like food shelter and clothing will be needed first before one decides to go for education, car among others.Carl Rogers’s The theory According to Person-centred theory, it postulates that self-concept is the most important personality feature, and it includes beliefs, feelings and thoughts that people have regarding them.

Rodgers states that people are fully aware of their self-concepts and the self-concepts often do not match with their reality. For example, a person may consider herself to be honest but usually, lie to her manager why she gets late to work.Interactionist theories Interactionist theory involves dealing with internal mental models as opposed to the external social models, in that individual will appreciate objects and actions with meaning for him/herself. Moreover, the theory appears to be more negotiable and tentative; examples of this theory are the symbolic interaction theory and exchange theory (Tett & Burnett, 2003).

The pros of this theory are that it provides an individual with the reality of life while the con is that it may make an individual to despise and have low self-esteem.Symbolic interactionism This theory proposes that before an individual engages in an interaction he will size up the other party to determine interaction value in a more symbolic way. For example, what value does the role of a student possess when a student cannot understand what a lecture is saying?Causes and influences of criminal behaviour in relation to the above theories According to the humanistic theory, people may get involved in criminal activities to satisfy their basic needs in life, for example, a person may steal food in a hotel because he is feeling hungry.

Moreover, people occasionally say lie even after swearing in a court of law simply because humanistic theory purports that people are good and shall trust what one states. According to Interactionist theory, individuals may end up getting involved in criminal activity because they feel that they are not worthy in doing performing something thus displaces the hunger elsewhere.Humanistic theory is most valid since it provides a holistic approach of view to people’s lives and provides an insight into people's behaviour.