Psychology, just like Ancient History and Philosophy, is a broad subject. Although I have never studied it, I've always been interested in psychology, but criminology and mental illness have both stood out to me as precise areas within the topic. Both areas are often linked together, as mental illness can induce criminal behaviour. For the purpose of Phase one research, I will narrow down the subject to focus on psychological criminology. This, therefore, allows me to look into behaviourisms, conditioning, nature Vs nurture and Trauma. I decided to look into psychological criminology as the subject interests me and stimulates me. I think it's crazy that one group of society can act completely differently to the rest, and commit crimes without a thought of how it might affect those they hurt. Its almost as if they lack a conscious. Many criminals seem to act as if the rules of society do not apply to them, and I'm greatly interested in the psychology behind this. Although psychological conditioning has large areas of research, they tend to have key figures and proposed works, which ultimately narrows down the topic greatly. I already have an understanding of Freud's conscious and unconscious mind which he believes links to Trauma, and from my work in last years Reflective Journal I already have knowledge and case studies concerning nature vs nurture and conditioning, so ultimately I already have brief research that I can build upon too.

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I was contemplating narrowing down psychology to focus on behaviourisms as a general study, but I believe that this can be included in psychological criminology to look into specific behaviours that are present in criminals. Behaviourism does interest me, but this ultimately looks into any form of behaviour, positive or negative. Its inclusion into psychological criminology narrows it down to negative behaviours and the trauma which causes it. Aside from behaviourisms, another large field of research that I could have looked into is the works of Sigmund Freud. He proposed that there is a constant dispute between fathers and sons, in an attempt to get the attention of the maternal figures. Personally I'm not a fan of Freud's work, as I don't believe his theories and feel like they reflect his own feelings more than anything. I, therefore, removed Sigmund Freuds larger theories straight away when considering how I could narrow down the field. After considering different routes to go down, psychological criminology was the largest aspect of psychology that stood out to me. It is a subject I thoroughly find interesting and contains numerous theories I could look into deeper.