Psy Explanation-cognitive Flashcards
Cognitive distortions is a form of irrational thinking. A persons perception of events is wrong but they think it’s true. Such distractions allow an offender to deny or rationalise their behaviour. Two examples are hostile attribution bias and minimalisation.
Hostile attribution bias is when a person automatically attributes malicious intentions to another. They blame other factors for their behaviour for example the victim.
Minimalisation underplays the consequences of an action to reduce feeling guilty. They believe the consequences are less damaging than they really are.
Kohlbergs theory of moral reasoning proposes that we think in a consistent and logical way about right and wrong with reference to socially agreed principles. He interviewed men and boys about the reasons for their moral decisions and conducted a stage theory for moral development. Each stage represents a more advanced form of moral understanding. There are three stages: pre conventional level, conventional level and post conventional level. And each level is divided into two stages. People progress through these stages. In the preconventional level children accept the rules of the authority figures and judge actions by their consequences. In the conventional level individuals continue to believe that conformity to social roles is desirable but this is not out of self interest. Post conventional level the individual moves to the norms of the social system.
In a longitudinal study kohl erg observed that only 10% of adults reach the post conventional level so the most common is the conventional level. Adults at the conventional level who break the law would feel justified as it helps maintain relationships. An offender may accept breaking the law to protect someone.
Criminals are likely to be at the pre conventional level. They believe breaking the law is justified if the rewards outweigh the costs or if the punishment can be avoided. In his study 20% of children at age 10 were at stage 1 and 60% at stage 2. This fits with the idea of an ‘age of criminal responsibility’. In England and Wales children under 10 can’t be charged with a crime as its beloved they don’t understand the idea of moral responsibility. They’re through to be at the pre conventional level where they judge right and wrong in terms of consequences
There is research support for the hostile attribution bias. Researchers showed emotionally ambiguous faces to violent offenders in prison and compared their responses to matched controls. The faces showed angry, happy or fearful emotions at varying intensities. The offenders were more likely to interpret any picture with some expression of anger as an expression of aggression. The researchers concluded that such misinterpretations of facial expressions may explain aggressive impulsive behaviour partly in certain individuals. Even though this explanation can partly explain aggressive impulsive behaviour it cannot explain planned and calculated aggression. The fact that it can only explain certain types of aggression is a downside.
There is also research support for minimalisation. Researchers found that sex offenders accounts of their crimes often downplayed their behaviour. For example the offenders suggested that the victims behaviours contributed in some way to their crime. Some also simply denied that a crime had been committed. This strategy of downplaying the consequences of their action is used more by sex offenders than burglars so it may only explain the thinking of some types of criminals.
Researchers demonstrated the notion on a developmental sequence for moral reasoning. Researchers reported that the sequence of stages appears to be universal but the post conventional level was less common in rural areas. There is also support for a link with offending behaviour. Researchers used their offending motivating questionnaire to test male juveniles and found 38% did not consider the consequences of their action and 36% were confident they wouldn’t be caught.
This suggests they were at the pre conventional level supporting the relationship between moral reasoning and offending behaviour. In addition to this moral reasoning could account for individual differences in offending behaviour. For example why a criminal may hurt others while committing a crime but another commitment a crime in the same offence may only threaten to hurt to get the same results. The two may be at different stages. This has practical applications as it suggests rehabilitation programmes should include training to increase offenders mortal development.
There is also a major issue of gender bias as the theory was based only on male sample. A researcher argues that moral development in men is different than in women. According to this researcher men’s moral development focuses on justice and fairness whereas women’s focuses on care and affections for other people.
This raises the issue of being able to generalise this theory to both genders. As the theory was based only on male samples it may be invalid to then generalise the theory to women as an explanation of offending behaviour.
