ABSTRACT
The previous chapter examined criminality from a biological perspective. This chapter presents a number of individual psychological perspectives on offending including unconscious motivations, personality and cognitive processes. The range discussed here is by no means exhaustive but gives some indication of the diversity of psychological views on criminal behaviour. The distinction between ‘biological’ and ‘psychological’ perspectives is somewhat arbitrary and, in the case of personality theory and psychopathy, there is inevitably a crossover. This to be expected since a long-term tendency within psychology as a field is to integrate biological, psychological and social perspectives.
