7. Psychological Explanations: Cognitive Explanations Flashcards
What was Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning?
He proposed that people’s decisions and judgements on issues of right and wrong can be summarised in a stage theory of moral development. Higher stage = more sophisticated moral reasoning.
What did Kohlberg base his stages of moral reasoning on?
He used situations like the Heinz dilemma and his moral dilemma situation to classify people in each stage.
What links did Kohlberg make between the stage of moral reasoning and the chance of offending?
He suggested criminals would fall into lower categories of moral reasoning than non-criminals. In 1973 he found using his moral dilemma techniques that a group of violent youths had lower moral development than non-violent youths.
What are the stages of moral reasoning and where would criminals fall within them?
There are 3 stages: Pre-conventional Morality Conventional Morality Post-conventional Morality Criminals fall into the first stage - they have a need to avoid punishment and gain rewards - less mature, childlike reasoning.
What supporting evidence is there for criminals being in the pre-conventional stage?
Chandler 1973 - found that criminals were egocentric and had poorer social perspective-taking skills - this means they were less concerned about the right of others - immature thinking - pre-conventional stage.
What are cognitive distortions?
Faulty, biased and irrational ways of thinking that mean we perceive ourselves, other people and the world inaccurately and usually negatively.
What are the two types of cognitive distortions?
Hostile-attribution bias
Minimalisation
What do criminals use cognitive distortions for?
Essentially they are ways in which criminals can justify their own actions.
What is hostile-attriubuton bias?
This is the tendency among criminals to judge ambiguous situations, or the actions of others, as aggressive and/or threatening when in reality they may not be.
This may trigger a disproportionately violent reaction.
What supporting evidence is there for hostile-attribution bias?
Schonenberg & Justye - 55 violent offenders shown emotionally ambiguous faces. Violent offenders were more likely to interpret these faces as aggressive than a non-violent control group.
What is minimalisation?
This is the self-deception criminals use to down-play the the significance of an event or emotion. A common strategy when dealing with feelings of guilt.
Offenders may claim they behaved as they did to support there family etc..
What supporting evidence is there for minimalisation?
Barbaree 1991 - among 26 incarcerated rapists, 54% denied committing an offence, further 40% minimslised the harm caused.
What are the evaluation points for cognitive explanations of offending behaviour?
+ Supporting evidence for moral reasoning stages
- Alternative theory for moral reasoning
+ Application of research
- Descriptive not explanatory
What is the supporting evidence for the moral reasoning stages?
Palmer & Hollin 1998 - compared moral reasoning - using the Socio-Moral Reflection Measure-Short Form - of 122 male non-offenders & 210 female non-offenders with 126 convicted offenders - the offenders showed less mature moral reasoning - supports Kohlberg’s theory
What is the alternative theory for moral reasoning?
Gibbs 1979 - altered Kohlbergs stages - said just 2 - mature and immature - do away with the third stage, post-conventional bc this is culturally biased and isn’t a normal progression in moral reasoning - casts doubts over the original theory
