Psychological explanations of offending: Cognitive Flashcards
Kohlberg’s model of moral reasoning
he proposed that people’s morals can be explained in a stage theory of moral development, and that criminals display a lower level of moral reasoning. He tested this by giving participants moral dilemmas (e.g stealing overpriced drugs to cure a dying relative) and analysed their responses and background.
Level 1: preconventional morality
rules are obeyed to avoid punishment or for personal gain, and people will break rules if they will get something out of it or can get away with it
Level 2: conventional morality
rules are obeyed for approval or to maintain social order
Level 3: post conventional morality
rules are obeyed only if they are fair and impartial, and the person establishes their own personal set of morals and ethical principles.
Cognitive distortions
That offending is often a result of errors in people’s thinking. Two types of errors relating to criminal behaviour are hostile attribution and minimisation
Hostile attribution bias
is the tendency to misinterpret ambiguous situations or expressions as hostile when they may not be. (seeing a neutral face as angry) This potentially has roots in childhood (socialisation)
Minimalisation
is an attempt to downplay or deny the significance of an event or emotion and can be defined as a ‘euphemistic label’. E.G. Burglars may say they are ‘helping their family’ or a sex offender may say they were ‘just showing affection’.
Evaluation strength: moral reasoning Palmer & Hollin (1998)
compared 126 offenders with two control groups using a moral reasoning questionnaire & dilemmas. They found that offenders displayed a lower level of moral reasoning than the non-offenders.
Evaluation strength: cognitive biases Schonenberg & Justye (2014)
found that offenders were more likely to see ambiguous facial expressions as angry & hostile.
Barbaree (1991) found that 94% of a sample of 26 rapists either denied the offence or downplayed its severity.
Evaluation strength: potential applications
Cognitive behavioural therapy (anger management) can be given to adjust their thinking, encourage them to face their actions, and change their future behaviour.
Evaluation weakness: descriptive but not explanatory
it is useful after the fact for identifying potential moral or cognitive faults, but is not useful on explaining why those faults may exist.
Evaluation weakness: individual differences
Offenders who have committed crimes show evidence of working at different ‘sub levels’ of Kohlberg’s theory.
Gibbs (1979) proposed a different theory of mature & immature reasoning.
