Cognitive Theory Of Crime

Question 1

What does cognition like thinking and mental processes include?

Answer 1

Reasoning
Decision making
Our self control

Question 2

What is the cognitive theory of crime?

Answer 2

Argues that mental processes like how we interpret the world around us shapes our behaviour.

Question 3

What was Yochelson and samenow’s investigation and what did they suggest?

Answer 3

Criminals are prone to faulty thinking, they studied 240 male offenders in which most had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. According to them criminal thinking errors are prevalent in our society, however offenders take these errors to the extreme which then develops into patterns of thinking and behaviour that harm other.

Question 4

What are thinking errors and what do they include?

Answer 4

They suggest that criminals show a range of errors and biases in their thinking and decision making like the need for power and control, lying and the lack of trust in others.

Question 5

What are some evaluations of the criminal personality theory?

Answer 5

Strength- it generated theories leading to more studies on this area like PICTS
limitation- sample is unrepresentative as it is all men and most whom were in a psychiatric hospital.