cognitive

Question 1

strength: PICTS

Answer 1

The idea that criminals’ thinking patterns are different from normal has led to other research. For example, PICTS (the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles) is a questionnaire aimed at revealing whether someone shows criminal thought patterns.

Question 2

strengths: successful treatments

Answer 2

Successful treatments, known as cognitive behavioural therapy, have been developed based on the idea that criminal’s thought processes can be corrected with treatment

Question 3

weakness: no control group

Answer 3

Yochelson and Samenow did not use a control group of non-criminals to see if ‘normal’ people also make the same thinking errors.

Question 4

weakness: sample

Answer 4

Their sample was unrepresentative: there were no women and most of the men had been found insane and sent to psychiatric hospital. Yet, Yochelson and Samenow claim that all offenders share the same thinking errors of this sample.