Extended project qualification, end of project presentation

1. EPQ Presentation
“Can an individual’s attachment to their primary
caregiver affect their participation in criminal
activities?”

2. Outline of my project
• Inspiration – As I hope to study criminology and psychology combined and
university, I am interested in what influences criminal behaviour. If attachment
can affect an individual’s participation in crime, this could provide us with a
strategy to prevent children from becoming offenders by working with them
and their caregivers from a young age.
• Process – Using other academic literatures and journals I researched
previously existing theories and research conducted in this area. I then
compared this to the results of my primary research questionnaire to aim to
reach a valid conclusion.
• Changes made – After reading about a fourth attachment type, disorganised, I
had to adapt my research and to accommodate this. After carrying out a pilot
study, and finding elements of it unsuccessful, I changed my method from
Thematic Apperception Test to an easier question based survey.

3. Key concepts
• Attachment – The emotional bond between a child and their primary caregiver, that
when strong, can create feelings of security and protection for the child.
• Secure – Develops when the child’s primary caregiver is able to respond to the
child’s every need including food and comfort.
• Insecure avoidant -May develop if the child’s primary caregiver is inattentive or
unavailable during times of distress. This motivates the child’s belief that any
communication of their needs will have no impact on their primary caregiver.
• Insecure resistant - Develops as a result of inconsistent levels of responses from
their primary caregiver. The child grows to be dependent on their attachment figure
and often exhibit clingy behaviour.
• Insecure disorganised - A result of a dual attachment type in which individuals
display characteristics of both avoidant and resistant types, they can be angry or
withdrawn and have a fear of rejection or dependence.

4. Primary research
• I used a sample of twenty volunteer participants aged between 16 and 20. My
survey was compiled of two different sections.
• One section consisted of four groups each of three statements, the questions
in this section were aimed at identifying which attachment type each
participant was.
• The second section consisted of three different artificial scenarios paired with
three different potential actions or responses. Participants were then asked to
tick the response that would be their immediate action in each situation.
Higher levels of criminality identified, would indicate the individual is more
likely to have or to potentially take participate in deviant or criminal activities.

5. Primary research findings

6. Secondary research
• Bowlby (1994) 44 Juvenile thieves - Concludes that attachments can have an
impact on an individual’s behaviour. However separation or complete loss of
attachment from their primary caregiver can have a higher impact on an
individual’s participation in criminal activities.
• Hirschi (1969) Social bond theory – Concluded that an individual’s attachment or
more importantly, their loss of attachment, can affect their participation in criminal
activities.
• Van Ijzendoorn (1997) and (1999) – From both of Van Ijzendoorn’s investigations,
it can be suggested that an individual’s attachment affects their participation in
criminal activities, with disorganised attachment having the highest influence.
• Telegraph (2012) – Suggests that an individual’s attachment to their primary
caregiver is not a significant factor in determining potential criminal careers and
that the influences for an individual’s participation in crime change over time.

7. Project conclusion
• Significant academic research evidence and my own primary research
suggests that an individual’s attachment to their primary caregiver can affect
their participation in criminal activities.
• Avoidant or disorganised attachments have the highest impact on potential
participation.
• However, our main concern should be on any individual’s prolonged separation
or complete loss of attachment to their primary caregiver as this appears to
have the most substantial impact on their behaviour.
• Attachment should then be a target for future interventions aimed at
preventing or reducing individual’s potential participation in criminal activities.
• But this does not mean that we should ignore other influences such as an
individual’s genes .

8. Strengths of my project
In order to avoid order effects, I counter balanced the sections of the survey so
that half of the participants had section A, the attachment questions first and the
other ten participants had section B first, the artificial scenarios. Therefore
increasing the validity of the data I collected.
As I was using questions that were either sensitive or involved judgments of
behaviour which may encourage bias, so as to avoid the effects of demand
characteristics, I used a single blind technique. This meant that throughout the
survey, the participants did not know my hypothesis for the study.
Participants were provided with a consent form. This stated that each participant
had the right to withdraw at any point of the survey and could choose to withdraw
their answers from the completed survey. In the consent form they were also
ensured that all participants’ answers were to remain confidential and only to be
used within this piece of research, which would not identify any one individual.

9. Weaknesses of my project
As all quantitative research data gathered in this area is only correlational,
including my own study, we can not be certain of a cause and effect.
It is difficult to apply this conclusion to all categories of crime, we cannot
assume that the link between an individual’s attachment and participation in
criminal activities is the cause of all crimes, for example corporate crimes or
large scale green crimes.
As well as this, most of the theories and research discussed have not
considered the implications of an individual’s nature on their behaviour or
participation in criminal activities.

10. Thank you for listening