Common Social Practice Of Excuse-Making

This essay will ‘compare and contrast’ two approaches made in investigating the ‘bystander effect’. It will discuss in some depth as to what exactly is meant by the bystander effect, illustrating when this concept was first shown and why. An outline will be made of the different methods used, those being experiments and discourse analysis, explaining each one in turn, within the framework of two cases. The first being the murder of ‘Catherine Genovese,’ 1964.and the second ‘James Bulger’ 1993. The essay will then show examples of the differences and similarities between each method. Concluding with a summary of findings into the two approaches to investigating the Bystander Effect.

Notably, the fundamental attribution error is a personal bias that is problematic in society. To emphasize, the fundamental attribution error is when individuals have the tendency to attribute people’s behavior to components of their character or personality, even when situational influences are producing the behavior (Textbook, page 171). An example of the fundamental attribution error operating in daily life is when a driver avoids hitting a pedestrian and causes an accident. In this

Sociological theories of crime contain a great deal of useful information in the understanding of criminal behavior. Sociological theories are very useful in the study of criminal behavior because unlike psychological and biological theories they are mostly macro level theories which attempt to explain rates of crime for a group or an area rather than explaining why an individual committed a crime. (Kubrin, 2012). There is however some micro level sociological theories of crime that attempts to explain the individual’s motivation for criminal behavior (Kubrin, 2012). Of the contemporary

He noted that other sociological theories of crime believed that since crime is bad, individuals involved in crime are also inherently bad. Tannenbaum disputed the notion perpetrated by other sociological theories that crime was the result of the individual’s inability to adjust to the society. On the contrary, he argued that deviants view themselves as part of a particular group in the society, where their behavior is acceptable by other group members.

There are many theories in the field of criminology that seek to explain the reasons behind why people commit crimes. Social process theory is one such theory and asserts that criminal behavior is learned through interactions with others (Schmalleger, 2012). There are four types of social process theories including: social learning theory, social control theory, labeling theory, and dramaturgical perspective. This paper will explore two of the theories including social learning theory and social control theory. The paper will discuss social process theory and the history of its development, the theory’s importance to criminology, examples of

The psychological phenomenon that the study centered around is the FAE, or the fundamental attribution error (also known as the attribution effect or the correspondence bias.) This phenomenon explains the inclination of people to place an emphasis on the internal qualities of a subject rather than external traits. This, however, does not explain or predict the participant’s own behavior or interpretation thereof. Unknowingly, each one of us experiences the FAE on a daily basis. While in traffic, we blame someone cutting us off on their “awful” personality rather than considering the situation or exactly why they were in such a rush. However, if we cut someone off in traffic, we blame it on the situation rather than our own internal habits and traits.

Throughout the years, the association between a criminal offense and a criminal have become more relevant. Although there are many theories that try to illustrate the concept of why crimes happen, no theory has a profound influence of understanding an individual’s nature, relationship, development, and a society itself (Coleman & Ganong, 2014). To further explain, “theories of crime are defined in relation to modernity, spanning their development from the enlightenment to the present, with the advent of postmodernism” (Miller, 2012, p. 1798). In other words, theories of crime are an approach to understanding an individuals behaviour and actions in their environment, society, and themselves that may lead to crime. Nevertheless, within this paper, it will be comparing the case of

It is important to examine individual’s behavior during an investigation and to examine any claims of automatism. Automatism is when individual’s thoughts or intentions do not consciously perform the correct behavior or normal actions. Automatism also means that individuals may have committed a crime or did something involuntarily. There are many individuals who believe that automatism is a defense. However, some researchers believe that automatism is not a legal defense. There are cases of impairment and involuntary criminal acts, such as hypoglycemia while driving that warrant for the automatism defense. In addition, individual’s behavior before, during, and after a crime can determine the cause of crime. It is important within the criminal justice field to determine if these claims are true and so that they can be ruled out as a defense. According to Child and Reed (2014), “Having recognized that automatism plays an inculpatory role within the law, we have then analyzed this role and concluded that it is defective: prior fault automatism lacks the equivalent blameworthiness necessary to fairly substitute for even missing basic intent offence elements” (p. 185). The automatism defense and individual’s behavior can determine the cause of crime, but does not always give a legal defense in a case.

There is no perfect formula to accurately predict crime or to understand the criminal elements of the human mind, but there have been many theories that have attempted to explain crime for better or for worse. The 5th edition Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences covers the both the most famous and infamous of criminal theories. Although some ideas are convincing at first they tend to fall flat when new evidence surfaces, so when reading, researching, or just watching the news in general it is important to remain vigilant and impartial as everybody else is entitled to their opinions. Unfortunately societies tend to spread false information quickly, but it is not like it is difficult to change someone’s opinions, however the amount of people with the wrong idea grows into quite a substantial number.

6. Justifying circumstances - Sometimes, persons suffering from emotional trauma, abandonment, violence, neglect or destructive social environment commit such heinous crimes. These mitigating situations can have devastating effect on their humanity. So, it is unfair to hold them fully responsible for their crimes. It is our communal responsibility to

This world is not perfect. People commit crimes all of the time. Wouldn’t it be really horrible if you get blamed for something you didn’t do? Sometimes, the people who commit the crimes cover up their tracks so they don’t get caught. They make it seem like someone who just happened to be walking by did it. Many people involved in a crime don’t do anything. 5 out of 10 people are only witnesses. The witness involved in a crime is usually the one to get blamed for something they didn’t do; if people think you did a crime, you might not get a job as easily as you used to, and even the people who love you would treat you differently.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the social learning theory of crime, and how it relates to certain criminal acts. Ronald Akers would say that a person’s desire to engage in crime is learned “through exposure to and the adoption of definitions favorable to crime” (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox 2014, p. 140). When an individual commits a crime they are acting on impulse because of actions they saw others engage in primarily during childhood, and therefore mimic those actions. Akers saw the need to extend Sutherland’s Differential association theory therefore creating a modern viewpoint known as Social learning theory (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox 2014). Social learning theory has four main mechanism of learning to describe how crime is learned.

There are different perspectives on explanations of criminal behavior such as Biological and Psychological explaining crime. The two perspectives have been considered exterior in criminology since majority perspective come from sociology. Sociology focuses on how law-abiding citizens become criminals and conventional lack of opportunity. Therefore the two perspectives had to take a back seat in history because they were seen as naive and not take serious. “Sociological theories cannot explain how one person can be born in a slum, be exposed to family discord and abuse, never attend school, have friends who are delinquents and yet resist opportunities for crime, while another person can grow up in an affluent suburban neighborhood in a two-parent home, attend the finest schools, have every financial need met, and end up firing a gun at a president” ” (Adler, Muller & Laufer, 1991).

One point of view holds that the social responsibility perspective believes that individuals are fundamentally responsible for their own behavior and that they choose crime over other, more law-abiding courses of action (Schmalleger, F., 2015, p. 15). This perspective places the cause of crime directly on the individual and presumes that the individual is exercising their free will. The social responsibility perspective on crime also relies on theories about individual faults leading to criminal behavior, and that in terms of the criminal, victim, and justice system individuals play a role within the social aspect of crime. These theories suggest criminals are different from noncriminals for biological or psychological reasons, the difference between this perspective and the social

Premeditated human misconduct, which is action, can be easily explained by the physical sources and the motives behind it. Stephen Morse explained that the intention of a human behavior is a product from desires and belief of the individual (Morse, 1997). For example, Henry is a police officer from his hometown, Jersey City, New Jersey. The reason behind his decision is that he wishes to follow his admired father, mother, or a family relative, which Henry believes that the best route is also become a police officer. Stephen Morse explained that this situation is refer to as a folk psychology because Henry’s mind set is to follow his relative occupation rather than choosing their own desire (Morse,