Forensics: Psycholgical Explanations: Cognitive Explanations Flashcards
Outline ‘levels of moral reasoning’
- moral reasoning refers to the process by which an individual draws upon their own value system to determine whether an action is right or wrong
- Kolhberg attempted to objectify this process by identifying different ‘levels’ based on peoples responses to moral dilemmas
How did Kohlberg apply moral reasoning to crime
- the higher the stage, the more sophisticated the reasoning
- he based his theories on peoples responses to moral dilemmas e.g. the Heinz dilemma
- studies suggest criminals show a lower level of moral reasoning than non criminals
- using his moral dilemma technique, kohlberg found a group of non violent youths were significantly lower in their moral development than non criminals
How are criminal offenders and non criminals classified according to kohlbergs model
- criminal offenders - classified at the pre conventional level (stages 1 +2 of kohlbergs model)
- non criminals - have progressed to the conventional level + beyond
How is the pre conventional level characterised
- a need to avoid punishment + gain rewards
- associated with less matures, childlike reasoning
- so adolescents + adults who reason at this level may commit crime if they can get away with it/gain rewards
- supported by studies that suggest offenders are more egocentric + display poorer social perspective taking skills (chandler)
Outline cognitive distortions
- errors or biases in peoples information processing system characterised by faulty thinking
- we all occasionally show evidence of faulty thinking when explaining our own behaviour (especially if it was out of character)
- research has linked this to the way in which criminal interpret others behaviour + justify their own
What are the two main examples of cognitive distortions
- hostile attribution bias
- minimalisation
Outline ‘hostile attribution bias’ as an example of cognitive distortions
- tendency to judge ambiguous situations/the actions of others as aggressive and/or threatening when they may not be
- offenders may misread non aggressive cues - e.g. eye contact
- which may trigger a disproportionate, often violent, response.
Outline Schonenberg and justye’s study into hostile attribution bias
- presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions
- they were compared with a non aggressive matched control group
- the violent offenders were significantly more likely to perceive the images as angry/hostile
Outline Dodge and Frames study into hostile attribution bias
- argued the roots of this behaviour may lie in childhood
- showed children a video clip of an ‘ambiguous provocation’
- children who had been identified as ‘aggressive’ and ‘rejected’ prior to the study, interpreted the situation as hostile.
Outline ‘minimalisation’ as an example of cognitive distortions
- a type of deception that involves downplaying the significance of an offence
- sometimes referred to as the application of a ‘euphemistic label’ (Bandura)
- e.g. burglars may describe themselves a s’supporting my family’ to minimise the serious of their offence
Outline Barbaree’s study into minimalisation
- found among 26 incarcerated rapists, 54% denied they had committed and offence at all
- minimalisation is most common in rapists
Outline Pollock and Hashmall’s study into minimalisation
- reported that 35% of a sample of child molesters argued that the crime they had committed was non sexual (they were simply being ‘affectionate’)
- 36% said their victim had consented
What are the three evaluation points for the cognitive explanations for criminal behaviour
- supporting evidence for levels of moral reasoning
- alternative theories of moral reasoning
- real life applications of research
Outline ‘supporting evidence for levels of moral reasoning’ as an evaluation point for the cognitive explanation of behaviour
- Palmer + Hollin - compared moral reasoning between 210 female non offenders,122 male non offenders and 126 convicted offenders
- they used the SRM-SF) which contains 11 moral dilemma related questions
- delinquent group showed less mature moral reasoning than the non delinquent group (consistent with kohlbergs theory
- C/A - Blackburn suggests delinquents may show poor moral development due to lack of role playing opportunities in childhood
Outline ‘alternative theories of moral reasoning ’ as an evaluation point for the cognitive explanation of behaviour
Gibbs’s - proposed a revised version of kohlbergs theory - compromising 2 levels of reasoning: Mature and immature
- in the 1st level, moral decisions are guided by avoidance of punishment + personal gain
- in the 2nd level, moral decisions are guided by empathy, social justice etc
- Gibb’s argued we should abandon Kohlbergs post conventional level because it is culturally biased + didn’t represent ‘natural maturation’
Outline ‘real life applications of research ’ as an evaluation point for the cognitive explanation of behaviour
- understanding nature of cognitive distortions is beneficial in treatment of criminal behaviour
- the dominant approach in the rehabilitation of sex offenders is cognitive behaviour therapy
- this encourages offenders to ‘face up’ to what they’ve done + minimise distortions
- studies show reduced incidence of denial/minimalisation in therapy correlate to a reduced risk of reoffending
