Psychological explanations: Cognitive Flashcards
What is the level of moral reasoning in offending behaviour?
Kohlberg proposed that moral reasoning refers to to the way a person thinks about right and wrong.
Offenders tend to show lower levels of moral reasoning than non-offenders.
Level 1- Pre-conventional morality
Level 2- Conventional morality
Level 3- post-conventional morality.
What are cognitive distortions?
Faulty, biased and irrational ways of thinking that mean we perceive ourselves, other people and the world inaccurately and usually negatively.
What are the two examples of cognitive distortions?
Hostile attribution bias
Minimalisation
What is hostile attribution bias?
The tendency to judge ambiguous situations, or the actions of others, as aggressive and/or threatening when in reality they may not be.
Explain Aiste and Schönenburg study on hostile attribution bias.
They presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions.
When compared to a non-aggressive matched control group, the violent offenders were significantly more likely to perceive images as angry and hostile.
Explain Frame and Doge study on where the hostile attribution bias originates.
It is rooted in childhood.
They 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 more hostile than those classed as non-aggressive and accepted.
What is minimalisation?
Any attempt to deny or downplay the seriousness of an offence.
Barbaree- found among 26 incarcerated rapists, 54% denied they had committed an offence at all and a further 40% minimised the harm they had caused to the victim.
Strength of level of moral reasoning.
Plamer and Hollin- compared moral reasoning in 332 non-offenders and 126 convicted offenders using the SRM-SF which contains 11 moral dilemma- related questions such as not taking things that belong to others and keeping a promise to a friend.
The offender group showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-offender group. This is consistent with Kohlberg’s predictions.
Limitation of level of moral reasoning.
The level of moral reasoning may depend on the offence.
Thornton and Reid found that people who committed crimes for financial gain were more likely to show pre-conventional moral reasoning than those convicted of impulsive crimes.
Pre-conventional moral reasoning tends to be associated with crimes in which offenders believe they have a good chance of evading punishment.
This suggests the kohlberg’s theory may not apply to all forms of crime.
Strength of cognitive distortions.
Good application to therapy.
CBT aims to challenge irrational thinking. In the case of offending behaviour, offenders are encouraged to face up to what they have done.
Harkins suggets that reduced incidence of denial and minimalisation in therapy is highly associated with a reduced risk of reoffending.- they start to rehab.
This suggests that the theory of cognitive distortions has practical value.
Limitations of cognitive distortions.
The level of cognitive distortion depends on the level of offence.
Sheldon and Howitt gathered questionnaire responses from sex offenders.
They found that non-contact sex offenders used more cognitive distortions than sex offenders.
Those who had a pervious history of offending were also more likely to use distortions as a justification.
This suggests that distortions are not used in the same way by all offenders.
