PSYC39H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Juvenile Delinquency, Psychosexual Development, Intellectual Disability
Document Summary
Psyc39 ch. 3 theories of crime: learning and environment. Basic psychodynamic principles: the id, ego, and superego. From a psychodynamic perspective, humans are thought to be inherently antisocial, driven by pleasure-seeking and destructive impulses. Crime generally occurs when these, often unconscious, impulses are not adequately controlled. Homicide usually does not originate because of a clearly defined impulse to kill, but is released by the intensity of internal conflicts". References to inner drives, traumatic situations, and protecting defences are commonplace in psychodynamic explanations of crime. Problems that result in superego formation, which are generally thought to stem from a failure to identify with prosocial parental figures, are of particular interest to those attempting to develop explanations of crime. Psychoanalysts have proposed three main sources of criminal behaviour related to the development of a harsh, weak or deviant superego. Harsh superego is assumed to lead to pathological levels of unconscious guilt.
