Social cognition and offending
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45 Terms
What is social cognition?
Distinction between impersonal and interpersonal cognition
What is impersonal cognition?
Our perception and understading of the physical world around us.
What is interpersonal cognition?
o Our perception and understanding of the social world around us. How to understand people’s behaviour.
o The capacity to understand other people and to solve problems in social situations
Whats the difference between concrete and abstracta reasoning?
o Concrete: thinking about the ‘here and now’, inflexible thinking
o Abstract: able to think about concepts as separate from objects, able to generalise and to reflect
- Attitudes, beliefs and values
What is Locus of controL?
External: think that what happens to you is out of your control; is due to external factors (e.g., other people, luck)
Internal: think that you have control over what happens to you
What is empathy/ social perspective taking?
o Ability to understand and share another person’s emotional state
What is social cognition and offending?
Offenders typically show poorer social skills and show distinct patterns of social cognition
o Poor self-control and greater impulsivity
o Concrete reasoning skills
o External locus of control
o Less empathy and poor social perspective-taking skills
o Poor social problem-solving skills
How can impulsivity explain offending?
Range of terminology used: impulsivity, self-control, risk-taking, sensation-seeking, hyperactivity, lack of premeditation
Robust finding that impulsivity is associated with antisocial behaviour/offending (Farrington, 2005)
How can impulsivity explain offending?
Cognitive empathy – ability to understand other people’s emotional state
Affective empathy – ability to share other people’s emotional state
Empathy proposed to be positively related to prosocial and altruistic behaviour, and negatively related to antisocial behaviour / offending
What did Jolliffe and Farrington (2004) meta-analysis find about emphathy?
35 studies examining empathy in offenders vs. non-offenders
21 cognitive empathy, 14 affective empathy
For all 35 studies, ES = -0.28, i.e. offenders have lower empathy
For cognitive empathy only, ES = -0.45
For affective empathy only, ES = -0.11
Cognitive empathy more strongly related to offending that affective empathy
What is social information processing model?
Encoding of social cues
Interpretation of social cues and mental representation of the social situation
Clarification of goals for social situation
Response access or construction
Response decision
Behavioural enactment
Circular model, not linear
what is encoding of cues?
Situational cues: timing and salience
Internal cues: influenced by social scheme and scripts
Selective attention to situational and internal cues
Emotion recognition
Empathic responsiveness
Affective/emotion cues from another person(s)
What is interpretation of cues?
Cues that have been encoded are used to interpret social situations and build a mental representation of it
Causal attributions
o Who/what caused the situation?
Intent attributions
o What is the intent of the other person/people in the situation?
Affective nature of relationship with other person/people?
What is clarification of goals?
Decide upon a goal or desired outcome for the situation
Choice of goals are influenced by an individual’s goal orientation and motivations
Affective nature of relationship with another person(s)
What is response access?
Possible responses accessed from memory
OR
New responses constructed
What is response decision?
- Responses evaluated in terms of:
- Probable outcomes (with reference to goals)
- Perceived efficacy (with reference to goals)
- Likelihood of success
- Appropriateness
- Ease of execution
- Response selected
- Affective nature of relationship with another person(s)
- Empathetic responsiveness
What is behavioural enactment?
Behaviour is enacted
Importance of social skills required to enact the chosen behaviourEmotion production
Display rules
What is social information processing?
All steps influenced by:
‘Database’
Memories, internal social schema and scripts, social knowledge, affect-effect links – all based on past experience
Emotion processes
Emotionality/temperament
Emotion regulation
Moods/background emotions
How can aggression/offending be explained by SIP?
Distinct patterns of social information processing among aggressive people and offenders (De Castro & van Dijk, 2018)
Most research is with children/adolescents, but more recent work has extended this to adults
SIP and agression step1: Encoding of cues?
Less information collected- offenders encode less information before making a mental model
Recency effect: recent cues remembered better
Attentional bias to hostile/aggressive cues. More likely to pick up if people are being aggressive towards them.
SIP and agression step 2: Interpretation of cues?
Hostile attributional bias
o In ambiguous situations, increased likelihood of interpreting a hostile intent to other people
External attributions of causality
o In ambiguous situations, more likely to blame others or other external factors
Scheme > social cues (top-down processing)
SIP and aggression step 3: Clarification of goals?
- Inappropriate goals
- Revenge
- Dominance
SIP and aggression step 4: Response access/construction?
More likely to rely on previous responses than generate new ones.
Fewer effective responses
Aggressive, avoidance, antisocial, rather than pro-social
SIP and aggression step 5: Response decision?
Evaluated by criteria
‘Positive’ outcomes (in line with their goals) seen as more likely to result from aggressive responses
SIP and aggression step 6: Behavioural enactment?
All of the above steps likely to produce poorer behavioural choices
Poor social skills
What did Lansford find about SIP and aggression/offending?
N = 576, aged 4/5 years, data also collected at 7/8 years, 12/13 years and 15/16 years
Measured SIP using video vignettes and pictures
Externalising behaviour – Child Behaviour Checklist
o Mother report at all times
o Teacher report at first 3 times
o Self-report at 15/16 years
Created SIP profiles at each time
- No SIP problems
- Early step SIP problems only (steps 1 and 2)
- Late step SIP problems only (steps 3 – 5)
- Pervasive SIP problems (all steps)
Compared externalising behaviours between SIP profiles at each time
Different levels of externalising behaviours by SIP profile
SIP problems associated with level of externalising behaviours
o Early SIP steps: Yes > No; Late SIP steps: Yes > No
o Pervasive SIP highest level of externalising aggression for most analyses
Higher proportion of girls in No SIP problems group at all times
What is attributional bias/intent attribution?
Meta-analysis Verhoef et al. (2019)
111 studies, including approx. 30,000 participants
Positive association between HIA and aggression
Stronger in emotionally engaging situations
Didn’t vary by familiar / unfamiliar peers
Stronger relationships for aggressive and rejected individuals
Similar for reactive and proactive aggression
What is Reactive and proactive aggression?
Reactive aggression: reaction to (perceived) provocation
Proactive aggression: planned aggression to achieve a specific outcome/goal
Evidence that associated with different aspects of SIP
How does reactive aggression explain offending?
- Association between reactive aggression and attentional bias
- Use of experimental / implicit tasks to measure attentional bias
- Attentional bias for aggressive stimuli associated with reactive aggression (e.g., Brugman et al., 2015)
- So early SIP steps:
o 1 Encoding
o 2 Interpretation of cues
how does proactive aggression explain offending?
- Association between proactive aggression and expected rewards/benefits of aggressive behaviour
- Explicit and implicit tasks can be used to measure bias towards using aggressive behaviour
- So later SIP stages:
o 4. Response generation
o 5. Response evaluation/choice
What influences SIP?
Evidence shows that social information processing patterns established quite early in childhood
Main influence on children at this age is parenting
Harsh parental discipline correlates with poor social information processing and high aggression in children
Parental endorsement of aggression associated with aggression in children
High power assertion in parental discipline associated with expectations of success of aggressive social strategies among children
What did Dodge find about SIP and parenting?
N = 584 children aged 4 years. Data collected also at 5, 6 and 7 years
Measured early physical abuse, family SES, exposure to violence, family life stressors, child behaviour
SIP – steps 1, 2, 4 and 5 using video vignettes
Child conduct problems rated by teachers at 7 years
SIP & conduct problems
o Poorer SIP associated with higher level of conduct problems
Physical abuse, SIP and conduct problems -
o Effect of physical abuse on conduct problems was mediated by SIP
Conclusions:
o SIP step 1: physically abused child becomes hyper-vigilant to hostile cues
o SIP step 2: child becomes more likely to attribute hostility in other situations
o SIP step 4: develops large repertoire of aggressive responses
o SIP step 5: learns that aggressive behaviour can have ‘positive’ outcomes
What is social cognition and gender?
Males > females for antisocial behaviour, aggression / violence and offending
Could social cognition be relevant?
Differential development of social cognitive skills between males and females?
Some evidence that females acquire social cognitive skills earlier – socialization?
Earlier acquisition might act as a protective factor against delinquent peers
What is moral reasoning and offending?
What is the link between what we think is ‘moral’ and offending?
- Knowledge of right or wrong?
- Attitudes to laws and norms?
- How we reason about justify our behaviour?
o Moral reasoning (e.g. Kohlberg, 1969; Gibbs, 1992, 2003)
o Emphasis on structure and process of how we reason about ‘moral’ behaviour
What is Gibbs sociomoral reasoning?
4 stage theory of sociomoral development
Immature reasoning
o Stage 1: importance of powerful people and physical consequences of behaviour. Little perspective-taking.
o Stage 2: some limited understanding of social interactions. Cost/benefit deals of behaviour
Mature reasoning
o Stage 3: importance of interpersonal relationships
o Stage 4: understanding of complex social systems
What is sociomoral reasoning and offending?
- If about reasoning/justifying behaviour – can offending be ‘justified’?
- Can it be ‘justified’ at all stages or some stages?
Stage 1: law breaking is justified if punishment is avoided
Stage 2: law breaking is justified if the gains/rewards outweigh the risks/costs
Stage 3: law breaking is justified if it helps to maintain relationships
Stage 4: law breaking is justified if it helps to maintain society of is sanctioned by social institutions
What os sociomoral reasoning and offending?
- Blasi (1980) 10/15 studies reviewed supported link
- Nelson et al. (1990) meta-analysis of 15 studies with juveniles
- Stams et al. (2006) meta-analysis of 50 studies with juveniles
- Van Vugt et al. (2011) meta-analysis of 19 studies looking at moral reasoning and recidivism
What is it about offenders sociomoral reasoning?
Developmental delay in sociomoral reasoning
Self-serving cognitive distortions
Main cognitive distortion for immature sociomoral reasoning is egocentric bias
Pervasive at immature stages (1 and 2)
Egocentricity = common among offenders
What is sociomoral reasoning and social cognition?
Gibbs also proposes ‘secondary’ cognitions:
o Blaming others or external factors rather than oneself for behaviour that harms other people
o Hostile attributional bias
o Minimising consequences / mislabelling of own antisocial behaviour to reduce feelings of guilt and regret
Evidence for these – Helmond et al. (2015), Wallinius et al. (2011)
Cognitive distortions described by Gibbs are similar to those of the SIP model
What is the development of sociomoral reasoning?
Role of peers to provide opportunity for social perspective-taking
Weak link between sociomoral reasoning levels of parent and children
BUT… association between child-rearing practices and sociomoral reasoning
o Inductive discipline
o High parental warmth / low parental rejection
o Supportive, but challenging environment when discussing moral issues
o Democratic family decision-making
How can this information be pulled together?
- Child-rearing/parenting and family variables implicated in acquisition of social information processing, cognitive distortions, sociomoral reasoning and offending
- SIP appears to mediate the role of parenting on antisocial behaviour, aggression and offending behaviour
- Children from harsh/neglectful backgrounds – greater risk of developing hostile internal models of the world which used as a filter for future social experiences
- Likely to lead to social cues being interpreted as hostile, triggering of negative beliefs about interactions and aggressive/antisocial responses
- Escalation of this behaviour into offending
What is the reasoning criminal?
Rational choice theory (Cornish & Clarke, 1986)
All individuals use cognitive strategies when deciding how to behave
RCP = decisions whether to commit crime
o Some people will decide ‘Yes’; others will decide ‘No’
Offenders seek to ‘benefit ‘from their crime, so involves cost-benefit evaluations – hence ‘rational’
Decision-making can take place at scene of crime and take into account environmental information
What are the cost and benefit of a reasoning crimincal?
Costs?
o Consequences of getting caught (arrest, conviction, prison)
o Family/friend’s disapproval
Benefits?
o Material goods (e.g., money)
o Instrumental benefits (e.g., status)
- BUT….
- The concept of ‘limited’ or ‘bounded’ rationality
o Cognitive biases, time pressure, emotional arousal, attitudes/beliefs, drugs/alcohol, etc.
- Individual differences in weight assigned to ‘costs’ and ‘benefits’
- Decision-making is subjective as is the desired outcome
- So behaviour isn’t always one that is objectively ideal
What is rational choice theory: Burglary?
- Offence specific decision-making
- Burglars less opportunistic that some people think
- For example, planning of targets
o What makes a house an ‘attractive’ target to break into?
- Plan targets: what makes a house an attractive/not attractive target?
- Security devices
- Dogs
- Clues about occupancy (e.g., presence of a car, windows open/closed)
- Garden shrubs to provide cover
- Level of (assumed) affluence
- Can rational choice theory be applied to all crime?
Quite a niche read, but if you are interested,
What is the rationale choice theory implications?
- Situational crime prevention
- Reduce opportunity to commit crime
§ Harden target
§ Remove target
o Increase risk of detection
§ Formal surveillance (CCTV, policing)
§ Informal surveillance (Neighbourhood Watch)
§ Street lighting
o Crime specific prevention