Psychological Explanations - Cognitive

Question 1

Whose ideas is this theory centred around?

Answer 1

Kohlberg

Question 2

What did Kohlberg apply to criminal behaviour?

Answer 2

Moral reasoning - he summarised that peoples decisions to commit crime can be summarised in the stage theory of moral development. The higher stage the more sophisticated the reasoning (based on a number of dilemmas such as Heinz

Question 3

What did studies show about moral reasoning?

Answer 3

Criminal tend to show lower levels of moral reasoning than non criminals
Kohlberg et al - using his moral dilemma technique found that a group of violent youths were significantly lower in their moral development than non-violent youths, even after controlling for social background

Question 4

What are criminals and non-criminals likely to be classified as in Kohlberg’s model?

Answer 4

Criminals = pre-conventional 
Non-criminals= conventional and beyond

Question 5

What is the pre-conventional level?

Answer 5

Characterised by a need to avoid punishment and receive rewards and is associated with less mature, child-like reasoning.
They may commit crime if they can get away with it or gain rewards like money , increased respect etc

Question 6

What do individuals who reason at higher levels tend to do?

Answer 6

Sympathise more with the rights of others and exhibit conventional behaviours such as honesty, generosity and non-violence

Question 7

What do studies such as Chandlers suggest?

Answer 7

Offenders are often more egocentric and display poorer social perspective - talking skills than non-offender peers

Question 8

What is a cognitive distortion?

Answer 8

An error or bias in an individuals information processing system characterised by faulty thinking.
We all do this - especially if our behaviour is not as usual but researchers linked this to the way in which criminals interpret other’s behaviour and justify their own actions

Question 9

What is hostile attribution bias?

Answer 9

Evidence suggests that people who commit violent acts are associated with a tendency to misinterpret the actions of other people e.g. assume they are being confrontational when they aren’t

Question 10

What was Schonenberg’s and Justye’s research into hostile attribution bias?

Answer 10

Presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions - when compared to a non-violent group, the violent group were far more likely to perceive the image as hostile

Question 11

What is Dodge’s and Frame’s research into hostile attribution bias?

Answer 11

Showed children a video clip of ‘ambiguous provocation’. Children who were identified as aggressive and rejected prior to the study interpreted the situation as more hostile than those classified as non-aggressive and accepted

Question 12

What is minimalisation?

Answer 12

An attempt to downplay the seriousness or deny the offence - has been referred to by Bandura as a ‘euphemistic label’
e.g. burglars may describe themselves as doing a job or supporting their families as a way of minimising the seriousness of their crime

Question 13

Who is particularly prone to minimalization and whose research supports this?

Answer 13

Those who commit sexual offences
Barqabee - found among 26 rapists 54% denied they had committed an offence at all and a further 40% minimised the harm they had caused to their victims
Pollock and Hashmall - reported that 35% of a sample of child molesters argued that the crime they committed was non-sexual and they were just being affectionate - 36% stated their victim had consented

Question 14

Which research supported the level of moral reasoning theory?

Answer 14

Palmer and Hollin - compared moral reasoning between 210 female non-offenders , 122 male non-offenders and 126 offenders using the socio-moral dilemma related questions such as not taking things from a friend. The delinquent group showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-delinquent group, which is consistent with Kohlberg

Question 15

What did Blackburn suggest?

Answer 15

Delinquents may show poor moral development due to a lack of supportive roles in childhood and therefore opportunities to develop moral reasoning should be provided

Question 16

What is Gibb’s alternative theory of moral reasoning?

Answer 16

Proposed a revised version of K’s theory comprising of both mature and immature reasoning
Immature reasoning is guided by avoidance of punishment and personal gain, mature reasoning is guided by justice, empathy and your conscience (these are equivalent to K’s pre and conventional levels
Gibbs argued that the post-conventional level should be abandoned as it is culturally bias and did not represent the natural maturational stage of cognitive development - supported by Piaget’s theory of moral development which suggests that child-like reasoning is self-centred and egocentric which gives way to empathy as children get older

Question 17

What is the application of the research?

Answer 17

Understanding cognitive distortions is beneficial in the treatment of criminals
The dominant approach to the rehabilitation of sex offenders is CBT which encourages offenders to ‘face up’ too what they have done. Reduced incidence of denial and minimlaisation in therapy is highly correlated with a reduced risk of offending and this is key to anger management

Question 18

What is the issue with individual differences?

Answer 18

Reid et al found that individuals who committed crimes for financial gains such as robbery were more likely to show pre-conventional moral reasoning than those convicted of impulsive crimes such as assault where reasoning tends to be associated with crimes which offenders believe they have a good chance of evading punishment

Question 19

What did Lange suggest about moral reasoning?

Answer 19

That intelligence may be a better predicter than moral reasoning - this would explain findings that those with lower intelligence are less likely to commit crime even though they have lower moral reasoning

Question 20

What is the final weakness of the explanation?

Answer 20

Descriptive not explanatory - cognitive explanations are descriptive, although they may be useful when predicting re-offending they do not tell us why the crime was committed in the first place

Question 21

What is the Heinz dilemma?

Answer 21

Heinz wife dying from certain type of cancer - the chemist had discovered the curing drug but was charging 10x what it cost to make it - Heinz couldn’t afford it and the chemist would reason with him so Heinz (desperate to save his wife) broke in and stole the drug- should he have stolen it?