Forensic Psychology - 8. Psychological Explanations: 3. Cognitive Distortions

Question 1

What are cognitive distortions according to Gibbs et al?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

What do offenders do due to cognitive distortions?

Answer 2

They attempt to rationalise or deny their crimes

Question 3

What do cognitive distortions allow criminals to do?

Answer 3

Legitimise their behaviour and maintain a positive view of the self

Question 4

Two examples of cognitive distortions

Answer 4

Hostile attribution bias
Minimalisation

Question 5

What does hostile attribution bias suggest?

Answer 5

Suggests offenders misinterpret social cues and justify their actions

Question 6

Example of hostile attribution bias

Answer 6

Thinking someone wants to fight you because they are rolling their sleeves up

Question 7

Under hostile attribution bias, what is violence caused by?

Answer 7

Causes by the perception that other people’s acts are aggressive

Question 8

Thinking of individuals with hostile attribution biaas

Answer 8

Always thinking the worst of people and situations

Question 9

Who carried out research into hostile faces? When?

Answer 9

Wegrzyn et al (2017)

Question 10

Participants of Wegrzyn et al’s study in hostile faces

Answer 10

62 males including 30 violent criminals, 15 with a history of sexual abuse and 17 non-criminals (control)

Question 11

Method of Wegrzyn et al’s study into hostile faces

Answer 11

Participants shown 20 ambiguous faces and asked to them them out of how much anger and fear they were showing

Question 12

Results of Wegrzyn et al’s study into hostile faces

Answer 12

Violent criminals rated the faces as angry more than the control group

Question 13

What is minimalisation?

Answer 13

Downplaying the seriousness of an offence or justifying it

Question 14

What will minimalisation reduce the feeling of for the offender?

Answer 14

Reduce the feeling of guilt

Question 15

What type of criminals are particularly prone to minimalisation according to research?

Answer 15

Sexual offenders

Question 16

Who conducted research support for minimalisation?

Answer 16

Kohlberg

Question 17

Sample of Kohlberg’s study into minimalisaton

Answer 17

75 young American males aged 10-16 at start of study

Question 18

Method of Kohlberg’s study into minimalisaton

Answer 18

Conducted a longitudinal study over a 12 year period

Question 19

Findings of Kohlberg’s study into minimalisaton

Answer 19

Majority of criminals didn’t progress from the pre-conventional level of moral reasoning

Question 20

What did Barbaree find about 26 imprisoned rapists?

Answer 20

98% exhibited some minimisation
54% denied they had committed an offence at all
40% minimised the harm they caused the victim

Question 21

Positive evaluation for cognitive distortions: real-life application

Answer 21

Knowing that offenders potentially think differently to non-offenders is beneficial in the treatment of offenders through intervention programmes where offenders can be taught how to think rationally and how to correctly interpret social cues

Question 22

Negative evaluation for cognitive distortions: potential

Answer 22

Cannot be used to identify potential offenders and even if you have a cognitive distortion, you aren’t going to necessarily turn to crime

Question 23

Negative evaluation for cognitive distortions: source of behaviour

Answer 23

Cognitive distortions don’t allow the source of the behaviour to be identified (where it came from). Do cognitive distortions only come about after crime as a coping mechanism or do cognitive distortions cause crime?

Question 24

Negative evaluation for cognitive distortions: research

Answer 24

Most research relies on the use of hypothetical stories to determine responses that are in a lab condition (E.g. seeing a picture of a face). This cannot be generalised to the wider population