3.2 Psychological Theories

The mind's account (the six schools): Psychoanalytic — the weak-or-strict superego; the unconscious guilt's roundabout self- punishment (the classic school, by name); Learning theories — the behaviourist reinforcement (the rewarded stealing) + Bandura's social learning (the modelled violence of home and screen); Cognitive development — Kohlberg's moral stages: the pre-conventional juvenile stuck at "not getting caught"; Personality and impulsivity — low self-control: the psychology's strongest single predictor; the adolescent sensation-seeking; Intelligence and school failure — the contested link, mediated through school failure and alienation; Attachment theory — Bowlby's broken bonds: the unattached child's empathy deficit. The juvenile synthesis: the psychological risks cluster in the school-age years — the intervention's window is the classroom-and-counselling, not the cell.