Cognitive Explanation Of Offending Evaluation

Question 1

What are cognitive distortions?

Answer 1

A form of irrational thinking whereby an individual perceives a situation in a distorted fashion where the perception isn’t actually the true intention. The individual is convinced their perception is accurate and can allow someone to rationalise and justify their criminal behaviours

Question 2

What are the two main cognitive distortions?

Answer 2

Hostile attribution bias and minimalisation

Question 3

What does attribution mean?

Answer 3

What we think when we observe someone’s actions and infer what is meant by the action

Question 4

What is a hostile attribution bias and how is it linked to criminal behaviour?

Answer 4

When an individual has an attribution leaning towards thinking the worst, so they always infer something awful from observations irrationally without knowing the true intention of what was observed.
- these negative interpretations can encourage aggressive behaviour which is intrinsically linked to criminal behaviour

Question 5

What is magnification and minimalisation?

Answer 5

Cognitive distortions:
. Magnification: over-exaggerating a situation
. Minimalisation: underplaying the consequences of an action to reduce negative emotions such as feeling guilty

Question 6

How is minimalisation linked to criminal behaviour?

Answer 6

Individuals who tend to minimalise situations fail to recognise the negative consequences of offending behaviour and don’t negatively interpret the behaviour to a point that they would learn not to offend. They don’t believe the consequences of the offending behaviour will be too harsh, simply to protect the individual from feeling the negative emotions that should be associated with the consequences of criminal behaviour.