Cognitive explanations

Question 1

What did Kohlberg apply to criminal behaviour?

Answer 1

Moral reasoning

Question 2

What did Kohlberg say?

Answer 2

That people’s decisions to commit crime can be summarised in the stage theory of moral development

Question 3

The higher the stage…

Answer 3

the more sophisticated the reasoning

Question 4

What did Kohlberg et al (1973) find?

Answer 4

Using the moral dilemma technique, found that a group of violent youths were significantly lower in their moral development than non-violent youths, even after controlling for social background

Question 5

What are criminal offenders likely to be classified as?

Answer 5

Pre-conventional

Question 6

What is the pre-conventional level characterised by?

Answer 6

A need to avoid punishment and receive rewards and is associated with less mature, child-like reasoning

Question 7

Why might those with a pre-conventional level commit a crime?

Answer 7

If they can get away with it
To gain rewards such as money
To gain more respect

Question 8

What did Chandler (1973) find?

Answer 8

Individuals who reason at higher levels tend to sympathise more with the rights of others and exhibit conventional behaviours such as honesty, generosity and non-violence

Question 9

What are cognitive distortions?

Answer 9

Errors or biases in people’s information processing system characterised by faulty thinking

Question 10

How have researchers linked cognitive distortions to criminality?

Answer 10

Linked to the way in which criminals interpret other’s behaviour and justify their own actions

Question 11

What is hostile attribution bias?

Answer 11

Criminals tend to misinterpret the actions of others, assuming they are being confrontational when they aren’t.
Eg. They may think they are being looked at when they aren’t

Question 12

What did Schonenberg and Justye (2014) find?

Answer 12

Presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions
When compared to a non-violent control group, the violent group were far more likely to perceive the image as hostile

Question 13

What did Dodge and Frame (1982) find?

Answer 13

Showed children a video clip of an ‘ambiguous provocation’. Children who were identified as aggressive and rejected prior to the study interpreted the situation as more hostile than those classified as non-aggressive and accepted

Question 14

What is minimisation?

Answer 14

An attempt to downplay the seriousness or deny the offence and has been referred to by Bandura as a ‘Euphemistic label’

Question 15

What type of criminals is minimisation common in?

Answer 15

Sexual offenders

Question 16

What did Barqabee (1991) find?

Answer 16

Among 26 rapists, 54% denied they had committed the offence at all and a further 40% minimised the harm they had caused to their victim

Question 17

What did Pollock and Hashmall (1991) find?

Answer 17

Reported that 35% of a sample of child molesters argued that the crime they committed was non-sexual and they were just being affectionate.
36% stated their victim had consented

Question 18

What did Palmer and Hollin (1998) find?

Answer 18

Compared moral reasoning between 210 female non-offenders, 122 male non-offenders and 126 offenders using the socio-moral dilemma related questions
Delinquent group showed less mature moral reasoning than the non delinquent group which is consistent with Kohlberg

Question 19

What did Blackburn (1993) find?

Answer 19

That delinquents may show poor moral development due to a lack of supportive roles in childhood.
Opportunities should be given to develop moral reasoning

Question 20

What did Gibbs (1979) propose?

Answer 20

a revised version of Kohlberg’s theory which comprised of both mature and immature reasoning

Question 21

What did Gibbs argue?

Answer 21

Pre-conventional levels should be abandoned as it is culturally biased and did not represent the natural maturation stage of cognitive development.

Question 22

What is Gibbs’ argument supported by?

Answer 22

Piaget’s theory of moral development which suggests that childlike reasoning is self-centred and egocentric which gives way to empathy and concern as children get older

Question 23

How can research be applied?

Answer 23

Beneficial for the treatment of criminals

Rehabilitation for sex offenders is CBT and allows them to face up to what they have done

Question 24

What is reduced incidence of denial and minimisation in therapy highly correlated with?

Answer 24

Reduced risk of offending and this is key to anger management

Question 25

What did Reid (1982) find?

Answer 25

Individuals who committed crimes for financial gain such as robbery were more likely to show pre-conventional moral reasoning than those convicted of impulsive crimes such as assault where reasoning tends to be associated with crimes which offenders believed they had a good chance of evading

Question 26

What does Reids findings show to be a problem?

Answer 26

Individual differences

Question 27

What did Langdon (2010) find?

Answer 27

Suggested that intelligence may be a better predictor than moral reasoning
This would explain the findings that those with low intelligence are less likely to commit crime even if they have less moral reasoning

Question 28

What is the issue with the theory being descriptive?

Answer 28

It is not explanatory

Doesn’t tell us why the crime was committed in the first place