1. Intelligence and IQ

2. Current Controversy - Delinquency, Race, IQ
What does IQ really measure?
Innate factors?
Learned factors?
Academic achievement, reading ability, test-wiseness?
Is IQ culturally biased?
If there are innate differences, are they caused by genetics or the environment?

3. IQ and Crime Mental deficiencies  crime
IQ expresses numerical differences in “mental abilities”
Early 1900’s, Simon and Binet, France
Large number of everyday tasks, by difficulty
Age levels assigned to tasks
“Mental age” based on tasks that test-takers can complete
IQ = Mental age/chronological age X 100
For example: Test taker is 9-years old, can complete tasks for a 9-year old, IQ=100
Smarter 9-year olds, higher IQ; duller, lower IQ
Binet felt that persons could raise their IQ through training

4. IQ Testing in America
Unlike Binet, Americans felt that IQ was fixed (inborn)
Early purpose to sort people into appropriate roles
IQ’s above 115 appropriate for the professions
Identify the subnormal, institutionalize them to prevent reproduction
Goddard
For an adult, a mental age 13 is the lower limit of normalcy, mental age 12 is “feeble-minded”
In one study 70 percent of incarcerated inmates were found to be feeble-minded
Goddard - feeble-minded persons are potential criminals, should be institutionalized & not reproduce

5. Studies in America
WWI, military used age 12 & below as disqualifying for service
37% of whites and 89% of blacks were disqualified, meaning that nearly half the population was “feeble-minded”
Goddard’s reaction
He changed his mind
Cannot equate IQ tests with native abilities
Feeble-mindedness can be remedied by education
Later studies
No difference in IQ scores for prisoners & draftees
Cannot conclude that most criminals are feeble-minded

6. 1967 - William Shockley IQ measures a “fundamental social capacity”
Differences between Afro-Americans and Euro-Americans due to genetic differences
Differences in IQ explain differences in poverty and in crime rates

7. After Shockley 1969 article by Arthur Jensen
IQ measures a factor important in Western industrialized societies
80 percent of differences due to genetics, rather than the environment
1976, 1987 articles by Robert Gordon
Variations in delinquency rates best explained by IQ
Social class does not explain away the relationship (IQ a better predictor of delinquency than social class)
1977 article by Hirschi and Hindelang
IQ as important as race & social class in predicting delinquency
IQ has been ignored because of bias against it

8. “Verbal” -v- “Performance” IQ
For most, the scores are similar
Delinquents have large gaps, with poor verbal but “basically” normal performance IQ’s
Poor verbal ability  Delinquency
Yes but there’s an intervening variable
Poor verbal ability  school problems  delinquency
Poor verbal ability  poor problem-solving abilities  delinquency
No - it’s a spurious relationship. The actual cause is...
Scholastic underachievement  delinquency
Social conditions  delinquency

9. Three competing concepts of what IQ really measures
Abstract reasoning/problem-solving ability, largely inherited (nature)
May be affected by environmental factors
Low IQ parents may poorly rear children, holding back their IQ’s
Qualities related to the dominant culture (cultural bias)
General abilities, largely determined by environment (nurture)
Performance may be affected in low-income areas
Ineffective child-rearing
Poor schooling
Weak family supports

10. Personality

11. What is “personality”?
Individual emotional and behavioral attributes and qualities (other than intellectual ability) that remain relatively constant
Aggressiveness
Impulsivity
Introversion/extroversion
Friendly/hostile
Cooperative/uncooperative

12. Personality studies 1950 – Gluecks
Compared 500 delinquent and 500 non-delinquent boys
Mix of characteristics was different
Delinquents more extroverted, impulsive, hostile
Delinquents less fearful of failure, less deferential to authority
Predictors of delinquency
Social background
Character traits (Roscharch test)
Personality traits (psychiatric interview)
MMPI demonstrates similar results
550 statements used for psychiatric diagnoses
Scale 4 used to predict delinquency. Has been criticized because...
Some items are delinquency (“when I was young I stole things”)
Other items are non-delinquency (“I like school”)
Ignores environment

13. Antisocial Personality Disorder (psychopathy)
APA DSM defines (doesn’t explain) criminal and delinquent behavior
APA DSM-4 - Antisocial personality disorder (APD): “pervasive pattern of disregard and violation of the rights of others that begins in childhood and continues to adulthood”.
At least 3 characteristics: repeated lawbreaking, repeated lying and deceit, impulsivity, repeated physical fights, repeated failure to work, lack of remorse
Characteristics must be: inflexible, maladaptive, persistent, cause significant functional impairment or personal distress
Adult antisocial behavior (criminal behavior in absence of APD)
Some gang researchers see “core” gang members as sociopaths who use the mob to act out their own aggression
Mc Cord - recidivism rates of delinquents diagnosed as psychopaths only slightly worse than those for others

14. Psychiatric prediction of future dangerousness
10-year study by Kozol, Boucher and Garofalo of high-risk offenders being released from prison
Psychiatric evaluation failed to predict two-thirds of subsequent violent offending
Two-thirds of those predicted to become violent did not
Monahan – clinical prediction difficult, requires that individual’s general situation not change
Compare context of past offending with new circumstances
Time since, severity and frequency of past violence
Yields probability for persons of like demographic characteristics

15. “Actuarial” prediction of crime and delinquency
Move away from predicting whether individuals will commit violence
Actuarial prediction: what factors are associated with an increased likelihood of future offending?
Best predictor of future delinquency is early childhood behavior
Disruptive classroom behavior, aggressiveness, lying, dishonesty (tautology problem)
May be affected by personality characteristics not measured by testing
Other predictors of future delinquency
Poor parental supervision
Separation from parents
Offending by parents and siblings
Low intelligence and educational attainment
Optimism about the possibility of intervention

16. Impulsivity and crime Definition
High level of activity, impatience for rewards, seek immediate gratification, easily distracted
Wilson & Herrnstein : Impulsivity  Conscience  Crime
Crime is naturally rewarding
We must be restrained by internal inhibitions (conscience), developed in early childhood through family rearing
Key factor: considering long-term rather than just the short-term consequences of one’s actions
Contributing factors
Poor child-rearing produces weak inhibitions
Membership in deviant subcultures
Mass media (modeling), learning one is a “victim”
Economic system/legitimate opportunities to gain rewards
Schools

17. Impulsivity and persistence of criminal behavior
Walters – “lifestyle criminals”
Irresponsibility, self-indulgence, chronic violation of social rules
Feelings of entitlement, being a “victim”
Power orientation – “dog-eat-dog world”
Superoptimism – feeling of invulnerability
Cognitive indolence – not paying attention to life details
Discontinuity – failing to set goals, carry out commitments
Moffitt – “life-course persistent offenders” - engaging in anti-social behavior at every stage of life
Early neurophysiological problems: nutrition, mother’s drug use, birth complications,
Home situation: child abuse, lack of affection & supervision
Disrupts schooling, less ability for legitimate rewards
Caspi, Moffitt et al study of “crime-proneness”
Children who experience excessive anger, anxiety, irritability may be “quicker on the draw” (more impulsive)

18. Policy implications
Impulsivity seems to be best psychological candidate as a cause of crime and delinquency (author’s favorite)
Some theories (e.g., Moffitt) specify causes of behavior (e.g., early psych. problems, poor parenting) & suggesting interventions
Clinical
Parenting classes
Special education
Author downplays psychological causes
IQ differences & school achievement can supposedly be explained by environment alone
Methodological problems – attaching personality labels simply because of differences in rates of offending
“Crime” is a societal definition, while “behavior” is the end result of a complex individual process
Difficulty in using personality to explain crime in general