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2.2: Psychological Perspectives

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    The psychological perspective examines how individual, evolutionary, and cultural factors influence behavior. We will explore the impact of personality, upbringing, cognition, psychopathology, and trauma on criminal and violent behavior and go on to explore pathways leading to criminality as well as culturally informed pathways out of criminality. The basic principles behind biopsychosocial perspectives as well as their limitations and criticisms.

    Psychology seeks to answer a central question: “Why do people break the law?” by studying the intricacies of the human mind, including how human minds make sense of their environment and are shaped by evolution, culture, and society. Psychological approaches to explaining criminal behavior can be differentiated from one another by looking at where theorists and researchers locate the flaw causing criminality. Some explanations emphasize individual traits, while others focus on social and cultural influences. This field of work encompasses many approaches, theories, and directions of inquiry. In this chapter, we will explore how individual psychology, cognitive-behavioral psychology, evolutionary psychology, cultural psychology, and integrative models of criminality answer the questions raised by criminal, or criminalized, behavior.

    This page titled 2.2: Psychological Perspectives was last modified on Mon, 21 Sep 2026 11:06:42 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Antoniette Aizon.