Book Reviews 373

substantially informative end. The author uses the following quote without comment: ‘The Ik appear to have disposed of virtually all the qualities . . . that differentiate us from other primates’ (p. 65).

Chapter 7, on socialization in the family, cautions us that children imitate the behaviours of their parents. It recommends that parents tell children to assist others and give them reward and praise for offering assistance. We are further advised that, when telling children off, we should explain our reasons to them, rather than employ ‘power-assertive discipline’ (p. 97).

Chapter 8 covers the influence of the school, the media, and peers. Regarding schools, there is information on some interesting programmes that have succeeded in producing a happier and more co-operative classroom climate. Regarding peers, we are told that children can learn both good and bad things from them. Regarding the media (which here is a code-word for television), it is ventured that, depending on its content, it can either be a positive or negative influence on children.

The book’s limitations are brought into sharp focus in Chapter 9, ‘The Effect of Circum- stances’. Here, the question arises of whether people, be they academic or not, need to be appraised of such platitudes as ‘. . . a major finding in psychological research is that peopies’ behaviour is influenced by aspects of their immediate situation . . .’ (p. 132). Perhaps not. Some of these situational aspects are then listed.

Chapter 10 contains a summary of the book and an indication of why it failed to provide fresh information that could be of practical use to children and their carers. Here, the author bites off more than anyone could chew when she writes, ‘. . . the study of prosocial behaviour is very important if we hope to reduce and . . . even eliminate the injustice, inhumanity and violence that have been constant features of human history’ (p. 149).

This book would have been far more satisfactory had it concentrated on the detailed descrip- tion and evaluation of those school intervention programmes mentioned in Chapter 8. A compendium of such modest proposals would be much more useful and thought provoking than another attempt to redeem humanity.

NICK LEE Department of Psychology

University of Reading

Hollin, C. R. (1992). Criminal Behaviour - A Psychological Approach to Explanation and Prevention, London, The Falmer Press. Pp x + 191. E11.95 paperback, E32 hardback. ISBN

The first problem this book has to deal with is one of definition. The author begins by accepting that criminal behaviour is ‘that which is forbidden by the law of the land’ (p. 2) and, having done this, struggles to come to terms with the problems inherent in dealing with a range of behaviour as diverse as acquisitive crimes, violence, and the possession of controlled sub- stances under one heading. His first attempt to deal with the problem leads to an examination of the relationship between morality and the criminal law, followed by some excellent thumb- nail sketches of consensus accounts of criminal behaviour, the conflict appraoch, critical criminology, and labelling theory, all of which make this book an excellent primer for any undergraduate criminology or sociology of deviance course.

Still sticking to his legal definition, Hollin then goes on to quantify criminal behaviour and examine the problems of the reliability of criminal statistics, following this with a short examination of the level and effects of the fear of crime and victimization. The next four chapters, the main bulk of the book, is devoted to overviews of differing types of explanation and covers biological and personality explanations; learning, cognition, and maturation; social factors; and the special case of mental disorder. On his own admission, Hollin’s choice of explanations is limited, and some psychological theories, such as psychoanalytic theory, are not included because they ‘are not attracting current research or informing today’s social policies’ (p. 12). Although a valid enough criteria for his choices, this has the effect of giving the book a limited approach, with little in it to stimulate debate, freshen radical analysis or highlight new areas for research.

Chapters 7 and 8 go on to examine the prevention of criminal behaviour through punishment, deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation and, again, Hollin provides clear and well written

1-85000-955-4 (pbk), 1-85000-951-1 (hbk).

314 Book Reviews

descriptions of current theories and strategies linked to well-referenced bodies of evidence and summaries of civil rights issues. The final chapter uses violence as an example of criminal behaviour to which the foregoing theories of explanation and prevention are applied. Hollin’s intention is to illustrate how a cogent framework based on psychological theory and evidence can be used to develop strategies for reducing the prevalence of any criminal behaviour but, although he does this well, his choice of violence as the example leads to my most serious criticism of this book.

Having limited himself firstly to a legal definition of a behaviour and then concentrated only upon currently attractive theories, no analysis is offered of how certain behaviours come to be labelled as criminal and others do not. Although, in his introductory sections, Hollin briefly mentions the pollution of the environment by multinational corporations and ‘white collar’ computer fraud as examples of criminal behaviours, neither these nor any similar topics are discussed. Throughout the book the examples he uses and the evidence he quotes progressively narrows the debate to concentrate upon the behaviour of (mainly) males from low income groups. Nowhere is there any attention paid to the fact that those providing him with his legal definitions are (mainly) white males from high income groups and, as a result, the criminal behaviours of this group are completely ignored. Neither is there enough analysis of race and gender issues with reference to criminal behaviour.

I was left with the feeling that to attempt to provide a psychological explanation of a legally, rather than psychologically, defined behaviour was a mistake. It would have been far better to categorize behaviours differently, such as deviating from social norms; risk-taking; interpersonal violence; corporate, organized, and group crime; crimes of greed and acquisition; and sexually motivated crimes. Lumping such diverse behaviours together under a legal heading is a handicap from which the book never recovered. I feel that both Hollin and his readers may need to be reminded that:

It is necessary to insert into social psychology a concern with the problem of power, or, more precisely, with relationships of power. If this is not done . . . [there is a] . . . risk of skirting around a number of phenomena the study of which is indispensable for our understanding of certain forms of social behaviour. (Deschamps, 1982, p. 97.)

That said, the book is a very useful introduction to many of the current theories, arguments, and issues in this area and would be useful to undergraduate students of psychology, sociology, social policy, and law, as well as lay readers trying to make sense of current crime problems and policies.

Deschamps, J. C. (1982). ‘Social identity and relations of power between groups’, in H. Tajfel (ed) Social

RICHARD ELLIOTT NACRO

Identity and Intergroup Relations, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Semin, G. R. & Fiedler, K. (eds) (1992). Language, Interaction and Social Cognition, London, Sage Publications. Pp 262. L35. ISBN 0-8039-8530-4. I once heard about a person researching jokes. People told him things that would have anyone else falling about. The researcher nodded sagely, and said ‘Yes, that joke exists’ as he matched it to his private classificatory system. I have a sense of this kind of disjunction in this book; a gap between what is intended and what is done.

Every contributor asserts that social psychology has missed an important element about what is ‘social’-namely, a proper understanding of language. This is what many critics have been saying for years. The critics-people like Billig, Shotter, Gergen, Moscovici, Harre, Potter, and Wetherell, who are part of the loosely-termed ‘European’ school-have gone further, and have created complex theoretical and methodological systems for a discursive, language-based social psychology. But these are not discussed in this book, and indeed, the aforementioned critics (apart from Harre, who is ignored altogether) each receive just one reference, in Graumann’s chapter.

‘Traditional’ (mostly American) social psychology has, according to its critics, focused almost entirely on the individual, and individual psychological processes-such as judgement,