Forensics - Dealing with Offending Behaviour: Anger Management Flashcards
What does anger management focus on (as suggested by Novaco 1975)?
Focuses on identifying and dealing with emotions which precede anger, as opposed to preventing anger in the first place (which is an unlikely outcome for many).
What kind of approach is anger management? What does this mean?
An ‘eclectic’ approach in the sense that offenders are taught skills from a variety of different approaches in psychology, such as communication skills (social) and ‘positive self-talk’ (cognitive).
What is the aim of anger management?
To increase the offender’s self-awareness of their anger and to also increase their self-efficacy in dealing with this anger
What are the three stages of anger management?
Cognitive preparation, skill acquisition and application practice.
What does cognitive preparation involve? What approach is this?
Cognitive approach - offenders identify and rationalise the patterns of emotion which occurs before, during and after aggression. This helps them to understand and predict why and when they are likely to become angry.
What does skills acquisition involve?
Skills acquisition is when the therapist teaches the offender techniques which can be used to manage their anger, and prevent them from spirally out of control.
What types of skills is the offender taught? What is this a form of?
Breathing techniques
Meditation
Positive self talk
This is a form of direct learning where the therapist demonstrates the techniques and the offender copies them.
What does application practice involve?
The offender applies the skills learnt in ‘skill acquisition’ to a real-life situation which would normally tigger anger e.g during a role play. Their behaviour, if the techniques are successfully implemented, is then positively reinforced by the therapist.
Who demonstrated the effectiveness of anger management? What did they find?
Keen et al (2000) found that the majority of prisoners who’d partaken in the National Anger Management Package were able to control their anger to a greater extent and were more aware of such anger, compared to the beginning of the therapy.
What are the limitations of anger management?
- AM therapies may be guilty of making the incorrect assumption that violent offences are caused by an inability to control anger. There actually may be very few or no differences between violent and non-violent offenders in terms of their anger. This draws questions over the validity of the use of anger management
for the majority of violent offenders. It could be the case that such use could be exploited by
offenders in return for rewards or a more lenient prison sentence! - Anger management is likely to have little effect on controlling anger in real-life. This is because the therapist will not be present to positively reinforce any desirable behaviours, and the prisoner may find themselves with stimuli which trigger such anger. this suggests that such therapies are best reserved for improving
prisoner’s conduct within prisons (rehabilitation), as opposed to providing a long-term solution to
offending. - Offender needs to be motivated in order for AM to be as effective as possible
What is a strength of anger management?
+ It incorporates behavioural theories and skills from a variety of different psychological approaches. For example, cognitive preparation focuses on the cognitive basis of aggression, whilst application practice focuses on the behaviourist principles of operant conditioning and positive reinforcement. This is a strength because it suggests that anger management recognises the variety of different triggers and bases of aggressive behaviour (and so is not an over-simplification!).
