Cognitive factors

What are cognitive distortions?

• Cognitive distortion is a form of irrational thinking. In particular, distortions are ways that reality has become twisted so that what is perceived no longer represents what is actually true.

• The result is that a person’s perception of events is wrong but they think it is accurate. In the context of criminal behaviour such distortions allow an offender to deny or rationalise their behaviour.

What are the two cognitive distortions relevant to crime?

• Hostile Attribution Bias

• Minimalisation

What is hostile attribution bias?

When someone leans towards always thinking the worst, such as if someone smiles at you but you think that they are thinking negatively of you.

How is hostile attribution bias linked to criminal behaviour?

Such negative interpretations lead to more aggressive behaviour. In terms of CB, HAB is most likely to be linked to increased levels of aggression.

What is minimalisation?

A cognitive distortion where the consequences of an action are under exaggerated.

How is minimalisation linked to criminal behaviour?

This can explain how an offender may reduce any negative interpretation of their behaviour. This helps individuals accept the consequences of their own behaviour and means that negative emotions can be reduced.

Levels of moral reasoning

• Kohlberg interviewed boys and men about the reasons for their moral decisions and constructed a stage theory of moral development.

• In a longitudinal study, Kohlberg found that about 10% of adults reach the post-conventional level which means that the most common level is the conventional level of moral development. Adults at this stage of moral development who break the law would feel that their behaviour was justified because it helps maintain relationships or society. An offender might accept breaking the law to protect a member of his/her family or protecting other people.

• According to Hollin et al, most criminals are likely to be at the pre-conventional level. They believe that breaking the law is justified if the rewards outweigh the costs or if punishment can be avoided.

Evaluation - supporting evidence for hostile attribution bias

• Schonenburg and Justye showed emotionally ambiguous faces to 55 antisocial violent offenders in prison. Responses compared to a matched control group. Offenders were more likely to interpret some expression as anger as an expression of aggression. Such misinterpretation of non verbal cues may at least partially explain aggressive-impulsive behaviour. 

Evaluation - support for minimalisation

• Kennedy and Grubin found that sex offenders downplayed their behaviour, suggesting that the victims behaviour in some way contributed and some even denied any crime had been committed. 

• Maura and Mann suggested this is fairly normal as everyone tries to blame events on external factors as a way to protect the self

Evaluation - support for levels of moral reasoning

• Colby and Kohlberg reported the sequence of stages appears to be universal though post-conventional reasoning is less common in rural communities (Snarey 1985) 

• Gudjonsson and Sigurdson. Of 128 male juvenile offenders, 36% were confident they would not be caught and 38% did not consider the consequences of their actions. This suggests juvenile offenders were at a pre conventional level.

• Chen and Howitt assessed 330 male offenders in Taiwan ages 12-18. Those who showed more advanced reasoning were less likely to commit violent crimes.

Evaluation - limitations of Kohlberg’s theory

• Krebs and Denton suggest moral principles may be overridden by more practical factors (e.g making financial gain). They found when analysing real life moral decisions that moral principles were used to justify behaviour only after the crime had been committed.

• Gilligan suggested a gender bias in Kohlberg’s research and that the theory is based on male perspective - one of justice rather than caring.