Cognitive theory for offending

Cognitive distortions

Cognitive distortions

Faulty, biased and irrational ways of thinking that mean we perceive ourselves, the world or others negatively.

What did Kohlberg suggest

Criminals don’t progress from the pre-conventional (childlike) level of moral reasoning, where they seek to avoid punishment and gain rewards. Whereas non-criminals reason to higher levels.

Kohlburgs research outline

20yr long study of 58 Chicago-area boys of middle and working class. Boys first interviewed between 10-16 and then at 3 year intervals after. Each had a 2hr interview based on 10 dilemmas to judge their moral reasoning. Kohlburg interested in reasons given for why they judged actions to be right or wrong. The reasons tended to change as the children got older.

Kohlburg et al (73) study

Using his moral reasoning technique found a group of violent youths were significantly lower in their moral reasoning then non-violent youths.

What did Chandler (73) suggest

Offenders are more likely to be ego-centric and display poorer social perspective taking skills then non offenders

Examples of cognitive distortions

Hostile attribution bias and Minimalisation

Level of moral reasoning

The way a person thinks about right and wrong, this thinking applies to moral behavior. The higher the level the more a peon is driven by what is right and not just avoiding punishment.

Hostile attribution bias

The tendency to judge ambiguous situations or the actions of others as aggressive/threatening when they may not be.

Minimalisation

A type of deception that involves downplaying the significance of an event or emotion, a common strategy when dealing with feelings of guilt.

Schoenberg and Justye - hostile attribution bias

Presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions. When compared to the non-aggressive control group the violent offenders were significantly more likely to perceive the images as angry and hostile.

Dodge and Frame - Hostile attribution bias

Showed children a video on an ambiguous provocation (couldn’t tell if it was hostile or accidental). Children who were regarded as hostile and had been ‘rejected’ by family were much more likely to regard the situation as hostility than children who weren’t regarded as hostile.

Barbree - Minimalisation

Found that among 26 incarcerated rapists, 54% denied they had committed a crime and 40% minimized the harm they had caused the victim.

AO3 research support

Palmer and Hollin compared moral reasoning between 332 non-offenders and 126 convicted offenders using the socio moral reflection measure short form which contains 11 moral dilemma related questions. The offender group showed less mature moral reasoning, this is consistent with Kohlburg’s predictions.

A03 - individual differences.

Thornton and Reid found that people who committed crimes for financial gain were more likely to show pre-conventional moral reasoning than those convicted of impulsive crimes. Showing pre-conventional moral reasoning is more associated with crimes in white h the offender believes they have a good chance of evading punishment.

AO3-Langdon and individual differences.

Suggested that intelligence may be a better predictor for crime than moral reasoning. Would explain why key groups of low intelligence are less likely to commit crime even though they show lower levels of moral reasoning.

AO3 - real world application

Understating the nature of cognitive distortions has resulted in Cognitive Behavioral therapy for the rehabilitation of sex offenders. This encourages offenders to face up to what they’ve done and establish the truth. Studies suggest that reduced instances of denial and Minimalisation in therapy are highly correlated with reduced risk of reoffending.