Cognitive explainations Flashcards
Kohlberg’s levels of moral reasoning
A stage theory of individual moral development, presented people with vignettes and looked at how they reached their decision.
The overarching stages
Pre-conventional morality, conventional morality, post-conventional morality.
List the stages in order
- doing what is right for fear of punishment
- doing what is right for personal gain
- doing what is right to be a good person
- doing what is right to help society
- doing what is right because the law is too restrictive
- doing what is right because we have unconsciously absorbed justice and equality.
What did Kohlberg predict
Lower levels of moral reasoning for offenders as they are concerned with punishment avoidance and gaining rewards.
What does blackburn suggest
The reason for poorer moral development in delinquents may be due to a lack of roleplay in childhood so they are more egocentric.
What is teh issue with people who are more egocentric
They cannot empathise as well
What did chandlar find
Delinquent youths are more egocentric than non delinquent controls. An intervention of role play promoting empathy reduced delinquent behaviour
Support for Kohlberg
Suporting evidence- Palmer and Hollin- 126 offenders compared to control of non-offenders and found less developed reasoning in offenders.
Limitations
Culture bias- Collectivist cultures will likely stop at stage 4 which suggests the theory is not universal
Gender bias- Alpha bias- Only used boys but concluded they were more advanced than girls at moral reasoning- palmer and hollin found no difference.
Cognitive distortions
Errors in information processing due to faulty, negative schema.
Hostile attribution bias
Misinterpreting other peoples actions by incorrectly assuming they are confrontonal and misreading non-aggressive cues. results in a disproportionate response
Hostile atribution bias - dodge and frame
Dodge and Frame- showed children a video of an ambiguous provocation, children previously catagories as aggressive were more likely to identify the children as hostile (cause and effect?)
Hostile attribution bias strength- Schinenberg and Justye
55 violent offenders shown emotionally ambiguous faces and were more likely to classify as angry and hostile than controls.
Minimisation
Downplaying the severity of an offence to try justify the behaviour- most common in sex offences
Minimisation support- Barbaree
26 jailed rapists, 54% denied committing an offence, 40% tried to minimise harm caused.