cognitive explanations

Question 1

Moral reasoning

Answer 1

Kohlberg (1973) proposed that the quality of people’s judgments of right and wrong can be summarised by a stage theory of moral development.

Offenders are more likely to be at the pre-conventional level. This means that a person is punishment orientated (reasoning based on whether or not the act will lead to punishment) and reward orientated (reasoning based on what can be gained).

Offenders are more likely to commit crime if they can get away with it and/or gain rewards

Question 2

Levels of moral reasoning

Answer 2

1) Pre-conventional: Individual show concern for self-interest and external rewards and punishments

2) Conventional: Individual does what is expected of them by others

3) Post-conventional: Individual develops more autonomous decision making based on moral principles or right and wrong

Question 3

Evaluation of moral reasoning

Answer 3

+Palmer and Hollin (1998) compared moral reasoning between 210 female and 122 male non-offenders to 126 convicted offenders using 11 moral dilemmas, such as not taking things that belong to others. The offenders showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-offenders.

-The level of moral reasoning may depend on the type of offence. Thornton and Reid (1982) found that individuals who committed crimes for financial gain, such as robbery, were more likely to show pre-conventional reasoning than those convicted of impulsive crimes (such as assault), where no reasoning was evident

Question 4

Cognitive distortions

Answer 4

An offender’s dysfunctional thinking about their offence serves to help them legitimise their behaviour and maintain a positive self-image.

Question 5

What is hostile attribution bias

Answer 5

Hostile attribution bias is when offender’s misinterpret social cues and justify their actions to themselves by blaming the cause of their behaviour on their victim.

An unprovoked act is justified on the grounds that the victim did something to initiate the violence. Offenders tend to judge ambiguous situations, or the actions of others, as aggressive and/or threatening when in reality they are not.

They may misread non-aggressive cues as aggressive which may trigger a disproportionate, often violent response.

Question 6

What is Minimalisation

Answer 6

Minimalisation is when offenders justify their offence to
themselves by playing down the significance of their actions.

This bias acts to reduce an offender’s feeling of
guilt. Offenders often use euphemisms for their offences, e.g. a burglar may say they have been ‘doing a job’.

Question 7

Cognitive distortions positive eval

Answer 7

+ effective practical applications in the treatment of criminal behaviour. The dominant approach in the rehabilitation of sex offenders is cognitive behavioural therapy. This encourages offenders to ‘face up’ to what they have done and establish a less distorted view of their actions. A reduced incidence of cognitive distortions in therapy is highly correlated with a reduced risk of offending

Question 8

cognitive distortions negative eval

Answer 8

• Minimalisation can describe how an offender rationalises/interprets their actions after the event but does not necessarily explain the initial cause of the
  offending.
• A key of the cognitive approach is that, whilst it explains thinking, it cannot account for the source of these thoughts. Are people born with cognitive distortions (nature) or are they the result of trauma (nurture).
• Cognitive distortions cannot be observed or measured and therefore lack falsifiability. Psychologists have to rely on self-report or their own inferences to determine what someone is thinking. This is not scientific and can lead to observer bias, reducing reliability