Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Sheldons somatotype theory
- Endomorph
- Soft, fat and rounded
- Social, relaxed character
- Mesmorph
- Hard and muscular
- Aggressive and adventurous - criminal type
- Ectomorph
- skinny and fragile
- Shy and introverted
- Argued that there are
three body types and each
has a associated
temperament
- Study of 200 male
delinquents, rated a full
length picture out of 7 -
Sheldon found male
criminal delinquents had
a mesomorphic body
type
- The theory established and
reinforced the idea of the
criminal stereotype
- Even if theres a link between body
type and criminality it isn't
necessarily casual. It is possible
that muscular people are treated
tougher and so become tougher
due to a self-fufilling prophecy
- High testosterone levels could
effect both body shape and
aggressive behaviour - Blackburn
- Evidence to support the theory is
mixed -
- glueck - found a link between
body shape and delinquency
- West and Farrington - Found no such link
between body shape and delinquency
- Cortes and Gatti
argued that
sheldon's
classification of the
somatotypes was
unreliable
- Sutherland criticised Sheldons sample
of delinquents suggesting he did not use
legal criteria in defining delinquent.
- When data was reanalysed with
legal criteria, Sutherland found that
the link was no longer present
- Even though some research has shown a link between
mesomorphy and criminal behaviour there could be
other explanations
- Individuals with a
mesomorphic body type may
learn from an early age that
behaving aggressively is the
only way to get what hey
want.
- Muscular body tpe may be aggressive to gangs
and so mesomorphs would be more likely to
join a gang