Chapter 8 Biosocial Approaches

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Chapter 8 Biosocial Approaches
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Chapter Summary

• Chapter Eight discusses the importance of both
  genetic and hereditary influences on criminal
  behavior as well as the environmental interaction
  with those genetic biological mechanisms.
• The Chapter begins with a discussion of behavior
  genetics, and how behavior genetics may be
  applied to criminal behavior.
• This is followed with a discussion of
  evolutionary psychology, and the theories of
  criminality evolutionary psychology addresses.

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Chapter Summary

• Chapter Eight then discusses the importance of
  neuroscience and the brain components that affect
  criminality.
• The author concludes the Chapter with an
  evaluation of the biosocial approaches, as well
  as a discussion of the policies biosocial
  theorists adhere to.
• After reading this chapter, students should be
  able to
• Understand and explain behavior genetics

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Chapter Summary

• Describe and discuss evolutionary psychology
• Discuss neuroscience, and its implications in
  criminology
• Explain the reward dominance theory
• Explain the prefrontal dysfunction theory
• Analyze and critique the biosocial approach
• Discuss the policy implications the biosocial
  approaches address

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Introduction

• Biosocial scientists are aware that we cannot
  explain behavior genetically, evolutionarily,
  neurologically, or hormonally without
  understanding the complementary influence of the
  environment.

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Behavior Genetics

• Behavior genetics A branch of genetics that
  studies the relative contributions of heredity
  and environment to behavioral and personality
  characteristics.
• Human behavioral and personality characteristics
  are observable and measurable components of a
  persons phenotype, which is the detectable
  expression of a persons genotype interacting
  with his or her environment.

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What are Genes?

• Genes Strands of DNA that code proteins.
• Genes produce tendencies or dispositions to
  respond to the environments in one way rather
  than in another.

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How do Behavior Geneticists do Research on
Criminal Behavior?

• Behavior genetics sample pairs of individuals
  such as twins, adoptee/biological sibling pairs,
  child/parent pairs, and so forth.
• Heritability A number ranging between 0 and 1
  indicating the extent to which variance in a
  trait in a population, not in an individual, is
  due to genetic factors.

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How do Behavior Geneticists do Research on
Criminal Behavior?

• All cognitive, behavioral, and personality traits
  are heritable to some degree.
• High heritability tells us that the present
  environment at the present time accounts for very
  little variance in the trait, it does not tell
  what other environments may affect variance in
  the trait.

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The Twin Method

• If genes are an important source of variation in
  a trait, then it is logical that individuals who
  are more genetically similar should be more alike
  on that trait than individuals who are less
  genetically similar.
• Twin methods help to examine the effects of
  environments that people share and those they do
  not.

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The Adoption Method

• The adoption method allows us to hold genes
  constant to investigate the effect of
  environments, and to hold environments constant
  to observe the effect of the genes.

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Gene/Environment Interaction and Correlation

• Gene/Environment (G/E) interaction and G/E
  correlation describe peoples active transactions
  with their environment .
• The concept of the G/E interaction involves the
  notion that people are differently sensitive to
  identical environmental influences and will thus
  respond to them in different ways to them.

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Gene/Environment Interaction and Correlation

• G/E correlation simply means that genotypes and
  the environments they find themselves in are
  related..

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Gene/Environment Interaction and Correlation

• There are three types of G/E correlation
• Passive G/E correlation refers to the association
  between genotypes and their environments in
  childrens earliest years.

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Gene/Environment Interaction and Correlation

• Reactive G/E correlation refers to the way
  parents, siblings, teachers, peers, and others
  react to the individual on the basis of his or
  her evocative behavior.
• Active G/E correlation refers to the active
  seeking environments compatible with out genetic
  dispositions.

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Behavior Genetics and Criminal Behavior

• Studies using genetically sensitive methods
  almost invariably show some genetic influence on
  antisocial behavior.
• What behavior genetics does for us is to make
  more sense of traditional criminological theories
  by pointing out the genetic underpinnings of some
  of their favored causal variables and providing
  us with fresh ways to understand and interpret
  their findings.

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Behavior Genetics and Criminal Behavior

• Adoption studies can help us to determine if
  children at genetic risk for antisocial behavior
  pattern experience more environmental risks for
  it than children not at genetic risk.

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The Modest Heritability of Criminality

• Genetic influences on antisocial behavior are
  rather weak.
• The majority of delinquents probably have little
  if any genetic vulnerability to criminal behavior
  while a small minority may have considerable
  vulnerability.
• Genetic effects on antisocial behavior appear
  most likely to be found among chronic offenders
  who begin on offending prior to puberty and who
  continue to do so across the life course.

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Evolutionary Psychology

• Evolutionary psychology is a way of thinking
  about human behavior using an evolutionary
  theoretical framework.
• Evolutionary psychology informs us how the genes
  of interest came to be present in our species in
  the first place.
• This theory focuses on what makes us all the same.

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Evolution by Natural Selection

• Natural selection selects the favorable
  variants and preserves them in later generations.
• Natural selection is evolutions mover and shaker
  because it continuously adjusts populations to
  their environments we call these adjustments
  adaptations.

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Thinking Evolutionarily Direct vs. Indirect
Motivation and the Naturalist Fallacy

• Evolutionary logic does not dictate that evolved
  adaptive behaviors are directly and consciously
  motivated by concerns of reproductive success.
• Adaptations move us to seek the immediate means
  of achieving specific goals, not ultimate
  evolutionary ends.

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Thinking Evolutionarily Direct vs. Indirect
Motivation and the Naturalist Fallacy

• Naturalistic fallacy The fallacy of confusing
  is with ought to be.
• Nature simply is, what ought to be is a moral
  judgment.

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The Evolution of Criminal Behavior Crime is
Normal

• Evolutionary logic tells us that if criminal
  behavior is normal, it must have conferred some
  evolutionary advantage on our distant ancestors.
• It is important to realize it is the traits
  underlying criminal behavior not the specific
  acts that are the alleged adaptations.

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The Evolution of Criminal Behavior Crime is
Normal

• Criminal behavior is a way to acquire valued
  resources by exploiting and deceiving others.
• Although we all have the potential to exploit and
  deceive others, we are a highly social and
  cooperative species.

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Cooperation Creates Niches for Cheats

• Cheats Individuals in a population of
  cooperators who gain resources from others by
  signaling their cooperation but then failing to
  follow through.
• Criminal behavior may be viewed as an extreme
  form of defaulting on the rules of cooperation or
  reciprocity.

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Cooperation Creates Niches for Cheats

• The Prisoners Dilemma Although the payoff for
  cheating is high when the other actor does not
  cheat, if both cheat they are both worse off than
  if they cooperate.
• Cheating is only rational in circumstances of
  limited interaction and communication.

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The Evolution of Criminal Traits

• There are a number of evolutionary theories of
  crime, all of which focus on sexuality as the
  prime mover of human behavior.
• There are two strategies that members of any
  animal species can follow to maximize
  reproductive success
• Parenting effort That proportion of the total
  reproductive effort invested in rearing
  offspring.
• Mating effort That proportion allotted to
  acquiring sexual partners.

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The Evolution of Criminal Traits

• Humans invest more in parenting effort than any
  other species.

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The Evolution of Criminal Traits

• The proximate motivation for any male seeking sex
  is sexual pleasure, with more offspring being a
  natural consequence.
• The reproductive success among our ancestral
  females rested primarily on their ability to
  secure mates to assist them in raising offspring
  in exchange for exclusive sexual access, and thus
  human females evolved a much more discriminating
  attitude about sexual behavior.

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The Evolution of Criminal Traits

• Because female reproductive success hinges more
  on parenting effort than mating effort, females
  have evolved higher levels of the traits that
  facilitate it and lower level traits unfavorable
  to it than males.

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The Neurosciences

• Whether the source of our behavior comes from
  within us or from out environment it is
  necessarily funneled through transmitted nerve
  impulses in the brain.

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Some Basic Concepts and Terminology

• The limbic system is concerned with emotion.
• Surrounding the limbic system and forming the
  bulk of the human brain is the neomammalian
  system (the cerebrum).
• The outer layer of the cerebrum is the cerebral
  cortex.

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Some Basic Concepts and Terminology

• The prefrontal cortex (PFC) occupies
  approximately one-third of the cerebrum and has
  extensive connections with other cortical
  regions, as well as with the deeper structures in
  the limbic system.
• Connecting all the brain structures are hundreds
  of billions of nerve cells called neurons.
• Sending and receiving messages is accomplished in
  microscopic fluid-filled gaps between axons and
  dendrites called synapses.

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Some Basic Concepts and Terminology

• The brain cell pass the information along the
  axon electrically until it reaches the synaptic
  knob at the end of a dendrite, at which time it
  is translated into chemistry as tiny vesicles
  burst open and spill out one ore more of a
  variety of chemicals called neurotransmitters
  cross the synaptic gap to make contact with
  postsynaptic receptor sites where the message is
  translated back into an electrical one for
  further transportation or inhibition.

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Some Basic Concepts and Terminology

• The most important neurotransmitters for
  criminologists to understand are dopamine,
  serotonin, and norphinephrine.

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Figure 8.1 Major Parts of the Brain of Concern to
Criminologists
Illustration by Peter A. Collins
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Figure 8.2 The Process of Synaptic Transmission
Sketch of two neurons at the top with an
enlargement at the bottom showing the release of
an unspecified transmitter into the synaptic
cleft. Source Ellis Walsh, 2000, p. 288.
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Softwiring the Brain

• About 50-60 of our genes are involved in brain
  development specifying its architecture.
• Neuroscientists identify two brain developmental
  processes that physically capture environmental
  events in a persons lifetime
• Experience-expected Hard wired and reflect the
  evolutionary history of the species.
• Experience-dependent Reflect each persons
  unique developmental history.

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Softwiring the Brain

• Much of the variability in the brain wiring
  patterns of different individuals depends on the
  kinds of physical, social, and cultural
  environments they will encounter.
• The process of wiring the brain is known as
  synaptogenesis.
• The brain creates and eliminates synapses
  throughout life, a process termed neural
  Darwinism.

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Bonding, Attachment, and the Brain

• Humans have powerful neurological and hormonal
  structures that demand the formation of
  affectionate bonds, and there are negative
  consequences associated with the failure to form
  them.
• A species giving birth to highly dependent young
  must evolve mechanisms of love and nurture.

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Abuse, Neglect, and the Developing Brain

• The lack of nurturing and attachment during
  early development may result in a brain that will
  adversely affect the childs ability to interact
  with its world.
• A brain organized by negative events is ripe for
  anti-social behavior.

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The Evolutionary Neuroandrogenic Theory (ENA)

• ENA theory asserts that evolutionary,
  neurological, and hormonal factors, as social
  environment factors, are all involved in crime
  causation.
• Males have been naturally selected for engaging
  in resource procurement and status-striving.
• Criminality is part of a continuum of activities
  involving status-striving in which males are the
  main offenders.

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Reward Dominance Theory and Criminal Behavior

• Reward dominance theory A neurological theory
  based on the proposition that behavior is
  regulated by two opposing mechanisms
• Behavioral activating system (BAS) Associated
  chemically with the neurotransmitter dopamine,
  and anatomically with pleasure areas in the
  limbic system.
• Behavioral inhibition system (BIS) Associated
  with serotonin, and with limbic system structures
  such as the hippocampus that feed the prefrontal
  cortex.

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Reward Dominance Theory and Criminal Behavior

• The BAS is sensitive to reward signals the BIS
  is sensitive to threats of punishment.
• BIS/BAS theory asserts that criminals have
  dominant BAS.
• A third system of behavior control is the
  fight/flight system (FFS) Refers to ANS
  mechanisms that mobilize the body for vigorous
  action in response to threats by pumping out
  epinephrine.

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Prefrontal Dysfunction (PFD) Theory and Criminal
Behavior

• The PFC is responsible for attributes such as
  making moral judgments, planning for the future,
  analyzing, synthesizing, and modulating emotions.
• If these functions are damaged via the PFC, it
  can result in anti-social behavior.

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Evaluation of Biosocial Perspective

• Biosocial theories have been tarred with labels,
  such as racist, sexist, and classicist.
• The strength of biosocial approaches lies in
  their ability to incorporated biological factors
  into their theories and to physically measure
  many of them via various chemical,
  electrophysiological, and neuroimaging methods.

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Policy and Prevention Implications of Biosocial
Theories

• Biosocial criminologists advocate a wide variety
  of nurturing strategies, such as pre- and
  post-natal care, monitoring infants and young
  children through the early developmental years,
  paid maternity leave, and nutritional programs.
• They look at prevention rather than cures, and
  favor indeterminate sentencing.
• Another program is to provide challenging and
  risky legal alternatives to the excitement of
  anti-social behavior.

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