Psycholgocal: Cog Explan

Question 1

What did Kolberg suggest

Answer 1

1. People’s sense of right and wrong progresses through stages of moral development
2. Criminals show lower levels of moral reasoning than non-crims
3. Group of violent youths has significantly lower moral reseposnse to Heinz dilemma

Question 2

What are the stages of moral development

Answer 2

Level 1: preconventional morality.
1. Avoid punishment and gain reward

Level 2: conventional morality
Rules are obeyed to maintain social approval and maintain social order

Level 3: post-conventional
Political and human rights

Question 3

Link Kilbergs model and criminality

Answer 3

1. Criminals generally commit crime to gain rewards or if they think they can get away with it
2. Studies show offender are more ego-centric
3. Those with higher morality sympathise more with rights of others

Question 4

Define cognitive distortions

Answer 4

1. Errors or biases in information processing

2. Faulty thinking in explaining one owns behaviour and also interpreting others

Question 5

Hostile attribution bias

Answer 5

1. Tendency to judge ambiguous behaviour at aggressive or hostile
2. 55 offenders significantly more likely to interpret emotionally ambiguous faces as hostile, when compared to controls

Question 6

Minimalsiation

Answer 6

1. Downplaying significance of an event or behaviour to reduce guilt
2. ## Out of 26 rapists, 55% denied committing offence and 40% mininalisaed the harmOut of a sample of child molesterors: 35% said crime was no-sexual and 36% said they had consented

Question 7

Support for levels of moral reasoning

Answer 7

1. When given 11 moral dilemmas

2. 126 convicts showed less mature moral reasoning than controls of male and female groups

Question 8

Application of cognitive distortions research

Answer 8

1. Helpful in treating and rehabilitation of Sex offenders with CBT
2. They encourage offenders to face up to their actions
3. Reducing minimalisation is highly correlated with reduced risk of reoffending

Question 9

Individual differences in moral reasoning

Answer 9

1. Pre-conventional morals reasoning only applies to financial gain crimes

Question 10

Big weakness of cognitive explanations

Answer 10

1. Although good at describing the criminal mind of criminals
2. Does not explain the ‘cause’ only the effect
3. Biological explaintions better, maybe these cause cognitive?