Criminological Psychology | Edexcel A-Level Psychology (9PS0)

Criminological Psychology

306 questions
23 subtopics
Paper 2: one application of three
Paper 2 and Paper 3

One of the three Paper 2 applications, of which a student takes one.

It covers biological and social explanations of offending, understanding the offender through interview and formulation, treatments, eye-witness testimony and jury decision-making, and the methods and ethics of research with offenders.

Sample questions from Criminological Psychology

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

Biological explanations of crime

How does impaired amygdala function relate to learning from punishment?

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Reduced amygdala functioning leads to failure to learn from punishment because individuals do not experience the normal fear response that would deter future anti-social behaviour.
The cognitive interview and ethical interviewing

What is the fourth stage of the cognitive interview after report everything, context reinstatement and recall in changed order?

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Recall from a changed perspective, describing the event as another person present would have seen it.
Biological treatments for offenders

How does anti-androgen treatment aim to reduce offending?

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By lowering testosterone it reduces sexual drive and, it is argued, the aggression associated with it.
Factors influencing jury decision-making

What did Sigall and Ostrove find about the effect of defendant attractiveness on sentencing?

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Attractive defendants received shorter sentences, except when their attractiveness was used to commit the crime.
Research methods in criminological psychology

What is a key strength of using laboratory experiments to study eyewitness testimony?

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High internal validity due to control over extraneous variables, allowing cause-and-effect conclusions to be drawn.
Reliability and validity in criminological research

What is population validity?

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Population validity concerns whether findings from a sample can be generalised to the wider population of offenders, victims, or witnesses.
Ethical guidelines in criminological research

Why is risk management a required component of psychological research under BPS guidelines?

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To ensure that potential harms to participants, researchers, and others are identified and minimised during the research process
Contemporary study: Bradbury and Williams (2013)

How does Bradbury and Williams (2013) relate to the specification's coverage of jury decision-making?

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It provides evidence that a characteristic of the jury, not only of the defendant, shapes the verdict.

The 23 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Biological explanations of crime	Recall questions on prefrontal brain injury, amygdala function, fear conditioning and empathy, XYY syndrome, personality, Raine's murderers, and how testosterone and evolutionary accounts explain gender differences in offending, with their weaknesses.	14
Social explanations of crime	Recall questions on labelling theory, the self-fulfilling prophecy and master status, differential association, and gender differences in offending: official statistics, gender-role socialisation, Heidensohn's control theory, the chivalry hypothesis and double deviance.	17
The cognitive interview and ethical interviewing	Recall questions on the four components of the cognitive interview, the priorities of ethical interviewing, and the planning and preparation, engage and explain, account, closure and evaluate phases of the PEACE model.	10
Psychological formulation and offence analysis	Recall questions on what a formulation is, how it explains the function of offending for the individual, and how it guides treatment.	8
Cognitive-behavioural treatments for offenders	Recall questions on the aims, strengths and weaknesses of CBT for offenders, Ireland's anger management evaluation, triggers and distorted cognitions, the three stages of anger management, social skills training and assertiveness training.	24
Biological treatments for offenders	Recall questions on diet and nutritional supplements, anti-androgen and hormone treatment, and the ethical objections to both.	10
Factors influencing eye-witness testimony	Recall questions on post-event information, leading questions, weapon focus, anxiety, and the reliability of identification.	20
Factors influencing jury decision-making	Recall questions on characteristics of the defendant, pre-trial publicity, and the research evidence on how juries reach verdicts.	19
Individual differences in criminological psychology	Recall questions on Eysenck's dimensions, why XYY is discredited, brain injury as an individual difference, and diathesis-stress.	10
Developmental psychology in criminological psychology	Recall questions on the self-fulfilling prophecy over a criminal career, Farrington's longitudinal study, risk factors, and adolescence-limited offending.	10
Research methods in criminological psychology	Recall questions on the laboratory and field methods used to assess eye-witness effectiveness, and their strengths and weaknesses.	13
Sample selection and techniques	Recall questions on random, stratified, volunteer and opportunity sampling, how each is carried out, and the strengths and weaknesses of each for representativeness.	14
Reliability and validity in criminological research	Recall questions on internal, external and inter-rater reliability, internal, external, ecological and population validity, the trade-off between reliability and validity, and how qualitative and quantitative methods differ on each.	18
Objectivity, credibility and ethics in criminological research	Recall questions on objectivity and subjectivity, credibility through replication, triangulation, peer review and transparent method, consent, withdrawal, confidentiality and deception with offenders and victims, social sensitivity, and the BPS code and HCPC principles.	17
Analysing data and evaluating practical research	Recall questions on when chi-squared, Spearman's rho, Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon suit criminological data, interpreting results against the aims, judging a practical's validity, reliability and objectivity, its weaknesses and improvements, and suitable practical exercises.	18
Ethical guidelines in criminological research	Recall questions on the BPS Code of Ethics and Conduct (2009) and risk management in research, the HCPC principles for assessment, formulation and intervention, and when each set of guidelines applies.	14
Classic study: Loftus and Palmer (1974)	Recall questions on the two experiments, the five verbs, the speed estimates, the broken glass finding, and the conclusion about post-event information.	10
Contemporary study: Bradbury and Williams (2013)	Recall questions on jury racial composition, the archival method, the association with conviction, and the implications for jury selection.	10
Contemporary study: Valentine and Mesout (2009)	Recall questions on the London Dungeon procedure, the anxiety measures, the 75 against 17 per cent identification rates, and the conclusion.	10
Contemporary study: Howells et al. (2005)	Recall questions on the brief anger management programmes, the null result, the role of treatment readiness, and what it implies for services.	10
Key question in criminological psychology	Recall questions on choosing a key issue such as eye-witness reliability or rehabilitation, and applying research to answer it.	10
Practical investigation in criminological psychology	Recall questions on designing an ethical study of recall or attitudes, operationalising accuracy, and the analysis to report.	10
Issues and debates in criminological psychology	Recall questions on ethics with vulnerable participants, social control, reductionism, nature and nurture, and social sensitivity.	10

Criminological Psychology is 306 of the 2,738 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.