biological school of thought

1. What is biological?
The biological basis of personality is the theory that personality is influenced by the biology of
the brain. Though closely related to personality psychology, the biological basis of personality
focuses on why or how personality traits manifest through biology, in addition to identifying
personality traits.
What is Criminology?
Criminology is a branch of sociology and has, in effect, been studied in one way or another for
thousands of years. It has only been relatively recently, though, that it has been recognized as a
scientific discipline in its own right.
A biological interpretation of formal deviance was first advanced by the Italian School of
Criminology, a school of thought originating from Italy during the mid-nineteenth century. The
school was headed by medical criminologist Cesare Lombroso, who argued that criminality was
a biological trait found in some human beings. Enrico Ferri and Raffaelo Garofalo continued
the Italian School as Lombroso's predecessors. The Italian School was interested in why some
individuals engaged in criminal behavior and others did not. Their explanation was that some
individuals had a biological propensity for crime.
The term Lombroso used to describe the appearance of organisms resembling ancestral forms of
life is atavism. He beloved that atavism was a sign of inherent criminalities, and thus he viewed
born criminals as a form of human sub-species. Lombroso believed that atavism could be
identified by a number of measurable physical stigmata—a protruding jaw, drooping eyes, large
ears, twisted and flattish nose, long arms relative to the lower limbs, sloping shoulders, and a
coccyx that resembled "the stump of a tail. " The concept of atavism was glaringly wrong, but
like so many others of his time, Lombroso sought to understand behavioral phenomena with
reference to the principles of evolution as they were understood at the time.

2. Biological theories within the field of criminology attempt to explain behaviors contrary to
societal expectations through examination of individual characteristics. These theories are
categorized within a paradigm called positivism (also known as determinism), which asserts that
behaviors, including law-violating behaviors, are determined by factors largely beyond
individual control. Positivist theories contrast with classical theories, which argue that people
generally choose their behaviors in rational processes of logical decision making, and with
critical theories, which critique lawmaking, social stratification, and the unequal distribution of
power and wealth.
Positivist theories are further classified on the basis of the types of external influences they
identify as potentially determinative of individual behavior. For example, psychological and
psychiatric theories look at an individual’s mental development and functioning; sociological
theories evaluate the impact of social structure on individuals (e.g., social disorganization,
anomie, sub cultural theories, opportunity, strain) and the impact of social function and processes
on individuals (e.g., differential association, social learning, social bonds, labeling).
Biological theories can be classified into three types:
(1) Those that attempt to differentiate among individuals on the basis of certain innate (i.e., those
with which you are born) outward physical traits or characteristics;
(2) Those that attempt to trace the source of differences to genetic or hereditary characteristics;
and
(3) Those that attempt to distinguish among individuals on the basis of structural, functional, or
chemical differences in the brain or body.