Cognitive factors Flashcards
Cognitive distortions
A form of irrational thinking.
In particular, “distortions” are ways that reality has become twisted so that what is perceived no longer represents what is actually true.
The result is that a person’s perception of events is wrong but they think it is accurare.
Cognitive distortions - criminal behaviour
Distortions allow an offender to deny or rationalise their behaviour.
Gudjonsson and Singh (1988)
Attribution is the “process by which an individual attempts to construct causal explanations for his or her behaviour and the behaviour of others.”
Cognitive distortions: errors in attribution
When we observe other people’s behaviour, we unconsciously try to find explanations for it.
Internal (dispositional) attribution -
The behaviour is due to personality traits.
External (situational) attributions -
The behaviour is due to factors in the environment.
Hostile attribution bias
When someone has a leaning towards always thinking the worst.
Such negative interpretations then lead to more aggressive behaviour.
Minimalisation - criminal behaviour
Both magnification and minimalisation are cognitive distortions where the consequences of a situation are either over-or-under exaggerated.
Minimalisation can explain how an offender may reduce any negative interpretation of their behaviour before and / or after a crime has been committed.
This helps an individual accept the consequences of their own behaviour and means that negative emotions can be reduced.
Criminal behaviours are prone to minimalistic thinking.
They undermine the consequences of their actions.
Minimalisation - criminal behaviour (example)
A burglar might think, when planning a crime, that stealing a few things from a wealthy family has very little effects on their lives.
Because of this way of thinking, the burglar doesn’t feel as bad about committing the crime.
Kohlberg (1969) - theory of moral reasoning
Kohlberg interviewed boys and men about the reasons for their moral decisions and constructed a stage theory of moral development.
Each stage represents a more advanced form of moral understanding.
People progress through these stages as a consequence of biological maturity and opportunity to develop their thinking, such as learning to take the perspective of another person.
Kohlberg - criminal behaviour
Found that about 10% of adults reach the post-conventional level (Colby et al (1983)).
This means that the most common level is the conventional level of moral reasoning.
Adults at this stage of moral development who break the law would feel that their behaviour was justified because it helps maintain relationships or society.
So, an offender might accept breaking the law to protect a member of his / her family or protecting other people.
Hollin et al (2002)
Most criminals are likely to be at the pre-conventional level.
They believe that breaking the law is justified if the rewards outweigh the costs or if punishment can be added.
“Age of criminal responsibility” - England and Wales
In England Wales, children under 10 cannot be charged with a crime because it is believed that they don’t understand the idea of moral responsibility.
Schonenberg and Justye (2014)
Showed emotionally ambiguous faces to 55 antisocial violent offenders in prison and compared their responses to matched control “normal” participants.
The faces showed angry, happy or fearful emotions, in varying levels of the intensity of the target emotion.
The offenders were more likely to interpret any picture that had some expression of anger as an expression of aggression.
The researchers concluded that such misinterpretation of non-verbal cues may at least partly explain aggression-impulsive behaviour in susceptible individuals.
Kennedy and Grubin (1992)
Found that sex offenders’ accounts of their crimes often downplayed their behaviour.
For example, the offenders suggested that the victim’s behaviour contributed in some way to the crime.
Some also simply denied that a crime had been committed.
Maruna and Mann (2006)
Suggest that this is a part of a fairly “normal” behaviour where all people try to blame event on external sources as a way to protect themselves.
In this way it is not especially deviant behaviour.
Gudjonsson and Sigurdsson (2007)
Used their Offending Motivation Questionnaire to assess 128 male juvenile offenders.
They found that 38% did not consider the consequences of what they were doing and 36% were confident they would not be caught.
This suggests that the juvenile offenders were at Kohlberg’s pre-conventional level of moral reasoning, supporting the relationship between moral reasoning and offender behaviour.
