Multiple-Factor Theory
Definition
The position, associated with William Healy, Augusta Bronner, and Cyril Burt, that delinquency has many interacting causes and must be studied case by case rather than traced to one biological or social variable.
Related terms
- Endocrine Gland Theory
- The claim that hormone-secreting glands (thyroid, adrenal, pituitary, and others) regulate temperament and impulse control closely enough to explain criminal conduct.
- Mesomorph
- Sheldon's muscular, broad-shouldered somatotype, which he linked to the temperament trait he called somatotonia and, empirically, to higher rates of officially recorded...
- Pedigree Study
- A research method that traces a trait, such as criminality or 'feeblemindedness', through several generations of a single family to argue the...
- Pyknic Type
- Kretschmer's rounded, thickset body type, which he associated with a cyclothymic temperament prone to mood swings between elation and depression.
- Somatotype
- A classification of body build into a small number of physical types, used by William Sheldon to assign each person a numeric...