GCSE Psychology Key Terms & Vocabulary

Every key term and definition you need for GCSE Psychology, organised by topic. 289 definitions across 10 topics (AQA · Edexcel · OCR), free to read and practise with spaced-repetition flashcards.

Research methods Social influence Brain and neuropsychology Language, thought and communication Psychological problems Memory Perception Development Sleep and Dreaming Criminal Psychology

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Research methods

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Case study: a detailed investigation of one person, a small group, an institution or an event.
Confidentiality: participants' personal data is kept private and they cannot be identified in any published findings.
Debriefing: informing participants of the study's true aims afterwards and answering any questions, restoring them to their pre-study state.
Deception: deliberately misleading participants; it should be avoided and only used if unavoidable and justified.
Dependent variable (DV): the variable the researcher measures; it is the outcome affected by the IV.
Directional hypothesis: used when previous research suggests which direction the results will take.
Ecological validity: a type of external validity concerning how well findings generalise to real-life, everyday settings.
External validity: the extent to which findings can be generalised beyond the study to other people, settings and times.
Extraneous variable: any variable other than the IV that could affect the DV if not controlled.
Extraneous variable: any variable other than the independent variable that could affect the dependent variable and threaten internal validity.
Field experiment: conducted in a natural, everyday environment while the researcher still manipulates the IV.
Independent variable (IV): the variable the researcher manipulates or changes to test its effect on the dependent variable.
Informed consent: participants agree to take part after being told the study's aim and what it involves.
Inter-observer (inter-rater) reliability: the degree of agreement between two or more observers recording the same behaviour.
Internal validity: whether the change in the dependent variable was genuinely caused by the independent variable rather than by extraneous variables.
Laboratory experiment: conducted in a controlled setting where the researcher manipulates the IV and controls extraneous variables.
Mean: calculated by adding all the scores together and dividing by the number of scores.
Median: the middle value when the scores are arranged in order from lowest to highest.
Median: preferred over the mean when a data set contains extreme scores, because outliers do not distort it.
Mode: the most frequently occurring value in a set of scores.
Normal distribution: a symmetrical bell-shaped curve in which the mean, median and mode all fall at the same central value.
Operationalisation: defining variables precisely so they can be measured (e.g. defining "memory" as number of words recalled).
Opportunity sampling: quick and easy but is more likely to be biased and unrepresentative.
Primary data: data collected first-hand by the researcher directly from participants for the current study.
Qualitative data: descriptive, non-numerical data, such as words, that gives detailed information.
Quantitative data: numerical data, such as scores or measurements, which is objective and easy to analyse.
Questionnaire: a set of written questions answered by respondents, often using closed questions.
Randomisation: the use of chance when designing a study so that there is no bias in the procedures, such as the order of materials.
Range: the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a data set.
Reliability: consistency: whether a study or measure would produce the same results if it were repeated under the same conditions.

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Brain and neuropsychology

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Cerebrum: divided into two halves called the left and right cerebral hemispheres.
Cerebrum: the largest, outermost part of the brain, divided into two cerebral hemispheres.
Dendrites: branched structures that receive impulses from other neurons.
Fight-or-flight response: driven by the hormone adrenaline, whose release sustains the aroused state.
Fight-or-flight response: seen as an evolutionary survival mechanism that prepared early humans to confront or escape danger.
Frontal lobe: associated with thought, problem-solving, planning and movement.
Cell assembly: a group of neurons that fire together and become a learned neural pathway.
Hebb's theory: summarised as "neurons that fire together, wire together".
Myelin sheath: a fatty layer that insulates the axon and speeds up the electrical impulse.
Penfield's patients: undergoing brain surgery for epilepsy and stayed conscious throughout (the brain has no pain receptors).
Synapse: the tiny gap between two neurons across which signals are passed.
Temporal lobe: involved in hearing (auditory processing) and memory.; The autonomic nervous system coordinates general physiological functioning using information from internal organs, working automatically.; The axon carries the electrical impulse away from the cell body towards the terminal buttons.; The brain stem controls vital automatic functions such as breathing and heart rate.; A criticism of James-Lange is that vigorous exercise raises heart rate and sweating without producing fear, so physical changes alone cannot explain emotion.; The Cannon-Bard theory challenges James-Lange by arguing that physiological arousal and the emotion happen at the same time, not one after the other.; The cerebellum coordinates voluntary movement, balance and muscle coordination.; The central nervous system consists of the brain and the spinal cord.; The central nervous system coordinates incoming information and makes decisions about movement and other activities.; Cognitive neuroscience studies how the structure and function of the brain relate to behaviour and cognition.; A CT (CAT) scan combines many X-ray "slices" into a detailed image, and is good at detecting tumours and blood clots.; Excitatory neurotransmitters make the receiving neuron more likely to fire an impulse.; An fMRI scan uses strong magnetic fields to detect blood-flow changes in active brain areas, without using X-rays or radioactive substances.; A strength of fMRI is that it is non-invasive and uses no radiation, making it safer than a PET scan.; During fight-or-flight, the liver releases stored glucose into the bloodstream for instant energy, while digestion is inhibited.; During fight-or-flight, heart rate increases and breathing deepens so blood carries more oxygen to the muscles.; Each cerebral hemisphere is divided into four lobes: frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital.; Hebb argued that neurons that repeatedly fire together form connected groups called cell assemblies, which strengthen with use.; In Hebb's theory, learning happens as cell assemblies become stronger through repeated use, improving memory and retention.

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Language, thought and communication

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Bee communication: not a true language because it lacks displacement and productivity (creativity), so it cannot describe past or future or create unlimited new messages.
Human language: creative (productivity): humans can produce an unlimited number of new messages, unlike fixed animal signals.
Non-verbal communication: communicating without words, e.g. through eye contact, body language and personal space.
Personal space: the physical distance people keep between themselves and others during interaction.
Postural echo: unconsciously mirroring another person's posture, which makes people seem friendlier and more likeable.
Personal-space norms: mostly learned by observing others rather than taught directly, which is why they differ between cultures.
Strong version (determinism): now largely rejected; most psychologists accept only the weak version, that language influences but does not determine thought.
Touch: a powerful non-verbal signal that can produce positive unconscious emotional reactions toward another person.
Von Frisch's findings: considered reliable because other researchers replicated the study and obtained the same results.
Weakness: the artificial setup (glass hive); bees do not naturally live in glass structures, which may lower ecological validity.
Yuki's sample: 118 American and 95 Japanese participants who rated emoticons.; Animal communication generally serves limited functions such as survival, reproduction, territory and finding food.; Argyle found that when one person wore dark glasses, conversations had more pauses and interruptions, showing eye contact regulates conversational flow.; Boroditsky (2001) found English speakers describe time horizontally ("ahead of") while Mandarin speakers also use vertical metaphors, and this affected how quickly they judged time questions.; Boroditsky's time-metaphor findings support the weak version (language influences thought), not the strong version, because speakers can still grasp the other way of thinking.; Carmichael, Hogan and Walter (1932) investigated whether a verbal label given with an ambiguous figure affected how participants later reproduced (drew) it.; Carmichael et al concluded the verbal label reshaped the memory of the figure, supporting the idea that language influences thought (the weak version).; Carmichael et al used an independent-groups design: two groups saw the same 12 ambiguous figures with different word lists, plus a no-label control group.; A figure of two circles joined by a line was labelled "eyeglasses" for one group and "dumbbells" for the other; drawings were distorted toward whichever label was given.; Closed posture, such as crossing the arms, signals rejection, defensiveness or feeling threatened.; The principle of antithesis says opposite emotions produce opposite expressions, e.g. a confident posture versus a submissive shoulder-shrug.; A weakness of the evolutionary theory is that display rules and gestures differ between cultures, suggesting some NVC is learned, not purely innate.; Darwin argued emotional expressions evolved because they aided survival and reproduction, so were naturally selected.; The principle of direct action of the nervous system says strong arousal discharges as expression, e.g. trembling or foot-tapping when anxious.; Serviceable associated habits: a behaviour that once had a purpose (e.g. baring teeth to bite) becomes an emotional signal of anger.; Darwin's evolutionary theory explains non-verbal communication as innate, adaptive and shaped by natural selection.; Darwin (1872) proposed three principles of emotional expression: serviceable habits, antithesis, and the direct action of the nervous system.; Darwin claimed basic emotional expressions are universal — recognised across all human cultures.; The Fore correctly matched Western facial expressions to emotional stories, supporting Darwin's claim that basic expressions are universal and innate.; Ekman & Friesen (1971) studied the Fore, an isolated pre-literate New Guinea tribe with no exposure to Western media.

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Psychological problems

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Addiction: clinically known as dependence syndrome, where substance use becomes the priority despite harmful consequences.
Tolerance: a person needs increasing amounts of a substance to get the same effect.
Withdrawal: the unpleasant symptoms (e.g. nausea, anxiety, irritability) felt when a substance is reduced or stopped.
Aversion therapy: criticised as reductionist because it targets only the learned urge to use and ignores biological, social and environmental causes.
CBT: a talking therapy that identifies and challenges negative thoughts and irrational beliefs.
Peer influence: a psychological explanation in which addiction is learned through social pressure and copying drug- or alcohol-using friends.
More people than ever: being diagnosed with mental health problems globally, suggesting prevalence has increased over time.
Self-management programmes: described as holistic because they address the wider picture, including social and environmental factors and past experiences.
Unipolar depression: a mood disorder of continuous low mood and loss of enjoyment and energy.; Ellis's ABC model stands for Activating event, Belief, and Consequence.; Aversion therapy treats addiction by pairing the addictive behaviour with an unpleasant stimulus.; The biological explanation of addiction is hereditary factors / genetic vulnerability.; A key characteristic of addiction is a strong desire to use the substance despite harmful consequences.; Difficulty in controlling use is a defining characteristic of addiction.; Peer influence explains addiction as learned from drug- or alcohol-using friends through social pressure.; The psychological explanation of addiction on the AQA spec is peer influence.; Self-management programmes include self-help groups and 12-step recovery programmes such as Alcoholics Anonymous.; Addiction (dependence) involves loss of control and withdrawal, whereas substance misuse is harmful use that has not yet become a dependence.; Some problems appear in early childhood while others, such as schizophrenia and mood disorders, often emerge in the teenage years.; A strength of CBT over drugs is that it tackles the cause of depression (faulty thinking) rather than only the symptoms.; CBT focuses on present ("here and now") problems rather than exploring the past.; In CBT the therapist often sets "homework" so the person practises challenging negative thoughts between sessions.; A practical weakness of CBT is that it is time-consuming and expensive, needing many sessions with a trained therapist.; A rise in diagnoses may reflect better recognition rather than a true rise in incidence, so increased diagnosis does not always mean increased incidence.; A Ministry of Justice study found 49% of females and 23% of males in prison were suffering from anxiety and depression.; A WHO study found about 15% of the cost of all health economic issues in the UK can be attributed to mental health problems.; People diagnosed with a mental health problem in the UK are about four times more likely to be out of work.; People with a mental health problem in the UK are about four times more likely to be out of work, showing the impact on the economy.; Effects on individuals include damaged relationships, difficulty coping with day-to-day life, poor sleep, low energy and negative effects on physical health.; An individual effect listed by the AQA spec is a negative impact on physical wellbeing, alongside damaged relationships and trouble coping day to day.

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Memory

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Practical application: revision: encoding by meaning (semantic) gives deeper, longer-lasting long-term memory than rote repetition by sound (acoustic).
Encoding: converting (inputting) information into a form that can be held in memory.
Middle-list words: recalled worst because they have left STM but were not rehearsed enough to enter LTM.
Bartlett's participants: British, and the study used around 20 participants.
Primacy effect: better recall of words at the start of a list, explained by transfer to long-term memory.
Procedural memory: implicit (non-declarative) — it operates automatically without conscious awareness.
Rationalisation: altering strange or illogical parts of a memory to make them more sensible and coherent.
Recency effect: better recall of words at the end of a list, explained by them still being in short-term memory.
Reconstructive memory: the theory that recall is an active rebuilding shaped by schemas, not an exact copy.
Retrieval: recovering stored information so it can be used.
Schema: a mental framework of knowledge built from past experience that guides how we interpret and remember information.
Serial position curve: U-shaped: recall is high at the start and end of a list and low in the middle.
Information: lost from short-term memory through displacement or decay.
Storage: holding (retaining) encoded information in the memory system over time.
Strength: real-world application, e.g. explaining errors in eyewitness testimony.
Weakness: the lack of control and no standardised instructions, making the study hard to replicate precisely.
Weakness: low ecological validity: recalling an unfamiliar story in a lab is not like remembering a real-life event.
Weakness: that Bartlett used only about 20 participants, a small and unrepresentative sample.; Acoustic encoding stores information as sound, e.g. repeating a phone number.; Bartlett's study aimed to test whether memory is reconstructed using schemas rather than recalled exactly.; Bartlett concluded that memory is reconstructive: people change recall to fit their own schemas and beliefs.; Bartlett conducted the War of the Ghosts study in 1932.; Clive Wearing lost his episodic memory but kept his procedural memory (he can still play the piano), supporting the idea that there are separate types of long-term memory.; Clive Wearing kept his procedural memory but lost his episodic memory, evidence that the multi-store model's single long-term store is too simple.; "Effort after meaning" is Bartlett's term for how people actively try to make sense of new information by fitting it to what they already understand.; Episodic memory stores personal events and experiences from your life, e.g. your first day at school.; Episodic and semantic memory are explicit (declarative) — they need conscious, deliberate recall.; Reconstructive memory helps explain why eyewitness testimony can be unreliable: witnesses fill gaps using schemas and may add post-event information.; Participants changed unfamiliar details to familiar ones, e.g. "canoe" became "boat" and "hunting seals" became "fishing".; A delay or counting task before recall removes the recency effect but leaves primacy intact, showing recency relies on STM.

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Perception

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Ambiguity: an image can be interpreted in two equally plausible ways.
Ames Room illusion: explained by size constancy.
Fiction: perceiving a figure that is not actually present in the image.
Gibson's theory: described as bottom-up processing: perception starts with sensory information from the eye.
Gibson's theory: "direct": the information needed for perception is in the environment, so no inference or learning is required.
Gregory's theory: described as top-down (indirect) processing, driven by expectations and prior knowledge.
Visual illusion: when the brain perceives something different from physical reality (perception is "tricked").
Kanizsa triangle: explained by fiction; the brain "sees" a triangle that is not actually drawn.
Misinterpreted depth cues: wrongly applying depth-perception rules to a flat image.
Necker cube: explained by ambiguity; the brain cannot decide which face is the front.
Optic array: the pattern of light reaching the eye, which Gibson said contains all the information needed for perception.
Optic flow (motion parallax): the apparent movement of objects in the optic array as we move, signalling our direction of travel.
Perception: the process by which the brain organises and interprets sensory information to make sense of it.
Perceptual set: a tendency, or "state of readiness", to perceive some features of a stimulus and ignore others.
Ponzo illusion: explained by misinterpreted depth cues (linear perspective).
Rubin's vase: explained by ambiguity (it can be seen as a vase or two faces).
Sensation: the raw information detected by the sensory organs (sense receptors) before any interpretation.
Perceptual set: evidence that perception is an active, top-down process shaped by prior experience, not passive reception.
Size constancy: perceiving an object as the same size even when its retinal image changes.; In the Ames Room, two people of the same size appear very different sizes due to the distorted room.; Binocular depth cues require both eyes working together.; Bruner & Minturn (1955) aimed to investigate how expectation affects the perception of an ambiguous figure.; Bruner & Minturn (1955) concluded that expectation creates a perceptual set that influences how an ambiguous stimulus is interpreted.; In Bruner and Minturn's study, participants shown letters first tended to perceive the ambiguous B/13 figure as a B; those shown numbers first tended to perceive it as 13.; In Bruner & Minturn (1955) participants saw a sequence of either letters or numbers before the ambiguous figure was flashed up.; In Bruner & Minturn (1955) the ambiguous figure could be read either as the letter B or the number 13.; Convergence: the brain uses how much the eye muscles turn the eyes inward to judge how near an object is.; AQA's four explanations for visual illusions are ambiguity, misinterpreted depth cues, fiction and size constancy.; The four factors affecting perception in the AQA spec are expectation, motivation, emotion and culture.; James Gibson proposed the direct (bottom-up) theory of perception, conventionally dated 1966.

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Development

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Accommodation: changing an existing schema to fit new information.
Assimilation: fitting new information into an existing schema without changing it.
Conservation: understanding that quantity stays the same despite a change in appearance.
Egocentrism: being unable to see a situation from another person's point of view.
Brain development: sensitive to environment, including nutrition, stress and harmful substances.
Fixed mindset: the belief that intelligence and ability are fixed and cannot be changed by effort.
Growth mindset: the belief that intelligence and ability can grow through effort and practice.
Brain development: influenced by both nature (genes) and nurture (environment and experience).
Schema: a mental framework that organises and interprets information.
Self-efficacy: a person's belief in their own ability to succeed at a task.; At birth the brain is about 25% of the size of an adult brain.; The brain stem controls automatic functions such as breathing, heart rate and sleep.; The cerebellum forms in the hindbrain at around week 15.; Class inclusion (objects belonging to a larger category) develops in the concrete operational stage.; The concrete operational stage runs from about 7 to 11 years.; From birth to age three the brain forms around 700–1000 new neural connections every second.; Around week 6 the forebrain divides to form the cortex and the thalamus.; Carol Dweck proposed the Mindset Theory of learning.; Dweck argues children should be praised for effort rather than for ability.; The brain doubles in size in the first year and reaches about 80% of adult size by age three.; The formal operational stage begins at about 12 years and continues into adulthood.; Piaget proposed that cognitive development happens in four stages.; By month 6 of pregnancy the brain is fully formed but not yet at full size.; Learning styles theory claims learners have a preferred mode, such as visualisers (pictures/diagrams) or verbalisers (words).; People with a fixed mindset tend to give up quickly when facing challenges, while growth-mindset people persevere.; In the accidental (Naughty Teddy) condition, 50 of 80 children conserved correctly.; McGarrigle and Donaldson tested whether children could conserve when the change looked accidental.; The study concluded children can conserve earlier than the age 7 Piaget proposed.; In the intentional (experimenter) condition, 13 of 80 children conserved correctly.; The Naughty Teddy study used 80 children aged 4 to 6 years from Edinburgh.

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Sleep and Dreaming

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Endogenous pacemakers: internal body clocks (such as the SCN) that control biological rhythms, while exogenous zeitgebers are external cues (such as light, temperature and meal times) that reset those rhythms to the environment.
Wolfman: Sergei Pankejeff, a Russian aristocrat born in 1886; Freud gave him the pseudonym 'Wolfman' to protect his identity.
Melatonin: the hormone released by the pineal gland that induces sleep, and its release rises in darkness — darkness triggers melatonin which makes us feel sleepy.
Light: the most important exogenous zeitgeber for the sleep-wake cycle; other zeitgebers include meal times and social activities, which help reset the body clock when natural light is unavailable.; The activation-synthesis model accounts for dreams combining 'day residue' (recent situations and experiences) with much older memories, and explains both common dream themes and individual differences through how each brain interprets the activation.; The activation-synthesis theory of dreaming was proposed by Hobson and McCarley (originally 1977): circuits in the brain stem (pons) generate near-random neural activation during REM, and the cerebral cortex then synthesises and interprets it, producing the bizarre features of dreams.; In activation-synthesis, REM activation spreads from the brain stem to limbic-system areas involved in emotion and memory (amygdala and hippocampus), which is why dreams carry intense emotions; the OCR spec specifies REM sleep, the limbic system, neurons in the pons and synthesis by the cerebral cortex.; Freud's study of the Wolfman was a longitudinal case study gathering in-depth detail on one individual; his methods for accessing the unconscious included free association, dream analysis and slips of the tongue.; Freud argued dreams are a form of wish fulfilment expressing repressed unconscious desires; the OCR spec specifies the unconscious mind, repression, wish fulfilment and manifest vs latent content as key elements of the Freudian theory.; In the Wolfman's childhood dream he saw a number of white wolves sitting in a big walnut tree outside his bedroom window and woke in terror, afraid of being eaten.; Freud interpreted the dream as rooted in the 'primal scene' — a repressed unconscious memory of witnessing his parents having sex as an infant — and read the wolf as representing the boy's father.; Causes of insomnia include stress and anxiety (raising the alerting hormone cortisol), a poor sleep routine, a poor sleeping environment (too light, noisy or uncomfortable), caffeine, and underlying health problems such as physical pain or mental illness.; The OCR spec lists the impact of neurological damage to the hypothalamus on sleep: damage stops the SCN working effectively, so the pineal gland is not signalled to release melatonin in darkness, which can lead to insomnia.; Insomnia takes two forms named in the OCR spec: sleep onset insomnia (difficulty getting to sleep) and sleep maintenance insomnia (difficulty staying asleep).; Relaxation techniques (clearing the mind, deep breathing, relieving muscle tension) treat insomnia by calming an over-active nervous system: deep breathing helps the parasympathetic nervous system slow the heart and breathing rate that anxiety has raised through the sympathetic nervous system.; Improving sleep hygiene treats insomnia by changing habits and the physical environment: avoiding alcohol, nicotine and caffeine before bed, avoiding naps and screens before bed, and keeping the bedroom dark, quiet, a comfortable temperature and used only for sleep.; NREM sleep progresses through stages: Stage 1 is light transitional sleep; Stage 2 shows sleep spindles and K-complexes; Stages 3-4 are deep slow-wave sleep dominated by high-amplitude, low-frequency delta waves.; Vivid dreaming occurs mainly during REM sleep, which recurs in each roughly 90-minute cycle through the night, with REM periods generally lengthening towards morning.; The main endogenous pacemaker is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a cluster of nerve cells in the hypothalamus that acts as the master body clock; it detects light through the eye and signals the pineal gland to release melatonin.; One full sleep cycle lasts roughly 90 minutes, and a typical night contains four to six cycles, each made up of NREM stages followed by a period of REM sleep.; One function of sleep listed by OCR is emotional stability: adequate sleep supports emotional regulation, and sleep loss is linked to greater irritability and poorer emotional control.; Williams et al. (1992) concluded dreams and waking fantasies are different modes of information processing, supporting activation-synthesis; a weakness is the home-based self-report method, which lacked control over the environment and recording and risked edited or omitted reports.; Williams et al. used the self-report method: participants kept written home journals, from which 60 dreams and 60 fantasies were selected, divided into one-sentence units and scored for bizarreness using Hobson et al.'s (1987) Bizarreness Scale by three independent judges.; In Williams et al. (1992), dreams scored higher than fantasies on plot discontinuity, plot incongruity, uncertainty and thought incongruity, with plot discontinuity showing the greatest difference.; Williams et al. (1992) used a sample of 12 students (2 male, 10 female), aged 23-45, enrolled on a biopsychology course at Harvard University Extension School.

Criminal Psychology

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Anger management programmes: cognitive-behavioural treatments that teach offenders to recognise and control anger so they are less likely to reoffend, though evidence for their effectiveness in reducing recidivism is mixed.
Heaven (1996): a longitudinal self-report study of 282 Australian adolescents (aged about 13-15) followed up two years later; self-esteem was measured in place of neuroticism.
Recidivism: reoffending: when an offender who has been punished commits another crime after release; high recidivism rates are used to argue a punishment has been ineffective.; OCR's punishment-and-deterrents strand includes community sentences (such as unpaid work) and fines as alternatives to prison for reducing criminal/anti-social behaviour.; Cooper and Mackie (1986) was a controlled lab experiment (high control), but its artificial setting (low ecological validity) and the fact that aggressive free play is not real criminal behaviour limit how far it supports the social learning explanation of crime.; Cooper and Mackie (1986) studied 84 children aged about 9-11 (22 pairs of boys, 20 pairs of girls); in each pair one child played and one watched an aggressive, low-aggression or non-video maze game for 8 minutes, then had 8 minutes of observed free play.; OCR teaches that crime is measured in two main ways — official statistics and self-report — and that criminal/anti-social behaviour is a social construct defined by deviation from norms and varying by culture.; The OCR J203 spec lists the types of crime students must know as violent, drug-related, acquisitive, sexual and anti-social offences.; Eysenck argued criminality develops when early socialisation fails: children who condition poorly do not learn to associate anti-social acts with anxiety or guilt, so are not deterred from offending.; Eysenck and Eysenck (1977) compared male prisoners with male controls and found prisoners scored higher on extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism, giving supporting evidence for the criminal personality theory.; A criticism of Eysenck's theory is that it ignores individual differences: not everyone with a high-scoring 'criminal' personality becomes a criminal, and many offenders do not have this personality type.; A review by Farrington et al. (1982) found offenders tended to score highly on psychoticism but not consistently on extraversion or neuroticism, weakening Eysenck's claim that all three dimensions link to crime.; Heaven (1996) relied on self-report questionnaires of delinquency, which can be unreliable because adolescents may under-report or exaggerate offending, weakening the validity of its conclusions.; Official statistics record only crimes reported to and recorded by police, so they underestimate the true crime rate because many crimes go unreported (the 'dark figure' of crime).; OCR includes the use of positive role models as a rehabilitation method: offenders can learn pro-social behaviour by observing and imitating a positive model, applying social learning theory to reduce reoffending.; Rehabilitation aims to reduce reoffending by changing the offender and increasing pro-social behaviour, whereas punishment/deterrents (prisons, fines, community sentences) aim to discourage crime through unpleasant consequences.; A Ministry of Justice evaluation found 85% of victims who took part in restorative justice were satisfied, and that restorative justice reduced the frequency of reoffending by 14%, supporting it as an effective rehabilitation method.; Self-report measures ask people directly about crimes committed or experienced and can reveal unreported crime, but may be unreliable because respondents can lie, exaggerate or forget.; In SLT, direct reinforcement is when the person is rewarded for their own criminal act (e.g. money or peer approval), and internalisation is when the learned behaviour becomes part of the individual's own value system.; Social Learning Theory says that for a behaviour to be imitated the observer must attend to the model, retain a memory of it, be able to reproduce it, and be motivated to copy it (often via vicarious reinforcement).; In SLT of Criminality, people are more likely to imitate criminal behaviour modelled by someone they identify with — a similar, high-status or admired role model such as a parent, peer or gang leader.; Because criminal behaviour is a social construct defined by deviation from social norms, what counts as a crime varies between cultures and changes over time as norms and laws change.; A token economy programme rewards prisoners with tokens (secondary reinforcers) for pro-social behaviour, exchangeable for privileges; it works on the principles of operant conditioning.; Cohen and Filipczak found young offenders who experienced a token economy were less likely to reoffend after 1-2 years, but after 3 years their recidivism rate matched a control group, suggesting token economies work only short term.

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