Jonathan D. answered • 09/23/20
BS in Psychology
As a behaviorist and a clinical psychology student, I will answer your question in terms of behaviorism.
First, behaviors occur within contingencies. There are 5 parts to a contingency. I won't go into extreme depth here, but essentially, one must keep in mind the context in which behavior occurs, what behavior occurred, and the consequence that followed the behavior. Consequences alter the probability of the behavior occurring again in the future (i.e., operant conditioning). Reinforcement is when a consequence increases the probability of a behavior occurring in the future. Punishment is when a consequence decreases the probability of a behavior occurring in the future. (e.g., exhilarated and behavior is reinforced, anxious and the behavior is punished)
Behaviors serve a function, and all behavior patterns exist because the behavior has been reinforced in the past. In other words, that behavior does something for them – it is adaptive in some way. Behaviorism is a very non-judgmental approach to psychology, because all behaviors “make sense.” If you know about someone’s learning history related to driving, then it makes sense that they drive the way they do, as their behavior pattern is a natural result of that learning history.
Firstly, let’s walk through some of the specific things you have brought up. Underlying your question is the presumption that “law-breaking” is always bad – that laws are always moral. “Common sense” implies that there are behaviors that all people would agree are "bad."
Looking at your first example: “driving in places when it’s prohibited,” imagine:
Someone is learning to drive; the only time they have to learn is at night. The local park closes at 10 pm. They go to the park with their teacher after 10 pm and practice. No one else is around. In this situation, the behavior is serving a purpose. This illustrates the point that breaking the law does not necessarily mean the behavior is maladaptive. In fact, the driving is helping them to work toward a goal. If someone were to tell them: “The park is closed; you can’t be here!” they might ignore that person. If one of them were to say something aggressive back, and the person left, then speaking aggressively served the function of getting the annoying thing to go away. These behaviors are accomplishing something. What if someone was learning an instrument, so they often made loud noises? Most people would likely agree that these situations are examples of times when following a rule is not wholly “bad,” and may in fact be adaptive.
Let’s talk about your example of driving “dangerously.” From a behavioral perspective, that is a judgment that isn't behaviorally specific. We would want to specify exactly what the person is doing. Let’s say the specific behavior is driving 20 mph above the speed limit. This person might behave differently if they're on a busy highway compared to a road in the countryside with no cars around. On a highway, it is entirely possible that traffic is going 20 mph above the speed limit, so going that same speed as all the other cars is the most adaptive behavior. If it is a country road, instead, perhaps they may say things like “no one’s here, it’s stupid not to take the opportunity” as you said. The context is important. Driving fast may be exhilarating, so speeding is reinforced. “No one’s here” would signal that they may behave differently if there were a lot of cars around.
Let’s say they are late for a custody hearing, and they're speeding to the courthouse. Even if it only “saves them a little time,” that is a judgment after-the-fact. They are speeding because it reduces the anxiety about being late to the hearing, or perhaps they're imagining happy things they could do with their children with custody. Either way, the speeding is reinforced. Also, even if it only saves a few minutes, those few minutes could be the difference between whether they are given custody or not. If someone is habitually late to appointments, and they always speed on the way, then speeding is reinforced if they are allowed to keep the appointment. Behaviors also occur as part of chains of behaviors that all have contingencies. Ignoring alarms or staying up too late may be part of that chain. Additionally, they may very well recognize that this habitual speeding could be dangerous, but they still do it anyway.
It’s good that you recognize the role of social pressures! In the case of driving “dangerously,” maybe they learned to drive with people who drive similarly. For example, some of the people who taught me to drive tend to drive in a way I would consider dangerous. I remember one time where I was about to miss an exit and the passenger told me to jerk the wheel suddenly to not miss it. If a driver drove with people who would complain if they were driving the speed limit, they would be socially reinforced to drive faster. With this point, you have partially answered your question.
Adolescence does often include rebellious, impulsive behavior. The prefrontal cortex does not finish developing until approximately age 25, which is the region related to impulse control. After that, as I have discussed, their learning histories during adolescence and into emerging adulthood will again lead to their behavior as an emerging adult and beyond. From a cognitive perspective, having those thoughts that “stealing is not bad” may make one more likely to engage in stealing behaviors, AND stealing may lead to more thoughts that “stealing is not bad” as a strategy to reduce cognitive dissonance.
It is certainly possible for thoughts and feelings to be incongruent with behaviors. You can engage in a behavior even if you think it is wrong. Someone might steal food because they are low income and it lets them feed their family. They may still seeing stealing as bad, or they may not. It is also possible to feel bad for stealing AND feel exhilarated while doing it. Conflicting thoughts and feelings show up all the time. My point is that people who engage in behaviors deemed criminal may see their behavior as “typical, anti-social, criminal” and still do it anyway, so trying to get people to see this behavior as not acceptable may not reduce the incidence of this behavior as much as you would expect. Going to jail might deter them from doing that behavior again, but they would still be going back into the same situation they lived in before being incarcerated. But now, job opportunities are more limited because they now have a criminal record (in the US, at least). If someone was selling drugs because that allowed them to have a higher quality of life than working a minimum wage job, then prison will not change that contingency. In fact, having fewer job opportunities will make drug-dealing an even more adaptive choice, since their options for making money “legitimately” have been narrowed. In the US, prison labor is barely compensated, so they also would have had little opportunity to accrue any savings while incarcerated. Intervening on the consequences end is one way to handle this, but intervening on the antecedent level (the context that precedes behavior) is another viable option. Augmenting social policy that tackles problems like lack of access to healthcare, affordable housing, criminal justice reform, and curbing recidivism can also act as crime prevention.
You asked specifically about people “with no morals or a sociopath.” What you’re describing would be described clinically as antisocial personality disorder. It usually involves a lack of empathy, meaning things that would be aversive for most people would not necessarily be aversive for people with this diagnosis (Dx). Not wanting to hurt someone may motivate us to not be physically violent because it has been punished in the past. If we wanted someone to stop doing something, we might ask them to stop or escape the situation, which are more socially desirable behaviors. For folx with an ASPD Dx, the lack of empathy would mean that violent behavior may not be as punishing. To understand why they keep doing this behavior, we again need to consider what contingencies are operating. The violent behavior is accomplishing something for them, whether that be reinforcement from enjoying violence itself, or maybe violence allows you to intimidate people into doing what you want. Furthermore, there is evidence that folx with ASPD are overall less sensitive to punishment. At the same time, their learning history likely shaped that lack of empathy, so altering the contingencies can help to shape empathy as well as new behaviors.
As for more readings, I would recommend looking into psychological interventions for personality disorders, antisocial personality disorder in particular. If the psychological theory I have described thus far sounds interesting, I would recommend researching contingency management and other behavioral treatments for ASPD. Understanding these, however, is predicating upon understanding the behavioral principles underlying them, so I would read up on the foundations of behaviorism and functional analysis. You may also be interested in cognitive dissonance literature. In the criminal justice realm, you could look into topics like evidence-based sentencing and recidivism reduction programs. On the policy level, you could look into ways that social policy can help to prevent crime from occurring.
You asked for some recommendations and I gave you an essay. 😅 I hope I offered something of use!
