Cognitive Psychological Explanations

Lawrence Kohlberg (1968): Proposed that people’s decisions and judgements on issues of right and wrong can be summarised in a stage theory of moral reasoning. He based his theory on people’s responses to a series of moral dilemmas, such as Heinz's Dilemma.

Level of Moral Reasoning: Moral reasoning refers to the way a person thinks about right and wrong. It is presumed that such thinking then applies to moral behaviour. The higher the level, the more the behaviour is driven by a sense of what is right and the less is driven by just avoiding punishment or avoiding the disapproval of others.

The Heinz Dilemma: One of the most popular moral dilemmas, asking if Heinz should steal an overpriced drug to save his dying wife and what the consequences of his actions should be, to determine someone’s moral standpoint.

Kohlberg et al (1973): Using moral dilemmas, they found that a group of violent youths were at significantly lower moral development than non-violent youths, even after controlling for social background.

Pre-conventional Level of Moral Reasoning: Stages 1 and 2 are characterised by a need to avoid punishment and gain rewards, and are associated with childlike reasoning. It is thought adults who reason at this level may commit crimes if they can get away with it or gain rewards in the form of money, increased respect etc.

Conventional Level of Moral Reasoning: Stages 3 and 4 are characterised by a need to obey for approval and to maintain social order.

Post-conventional Level of Moral Reasoning: Stages 5 and 6 are characterised by the challenging of rules if they infringe on the rights of others and the individuals have a personal set of ethical principles. Individuals who reason at higher levels tend to sympathise more with the rights of others and exhibit more conventional behaviours such as honesty, generosity and non-violence.

Cognitive Distortions: Faulty, biased and irrational ways of thinking that means we perceive ourselves, other people and the world inaccurately and usually negatively. Two examples are hostile attribution bias and minimalisation.

Hostile Attribution Bias: The tendency to judge ambiguous situations, or the actions of others, as aggressive and/or threatening when in reality they may not be. Offenders may misread non-aggressive cues and this may trigger a disproportionate, often violent response. The roots of this aggressive behaviour may be apparent in childhood.

Schonenberg and Jusyte (2014): Presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions. When compared with a non-aggressive matched control group, the violent offenders were significantly more likely to perceive the images as angry and hostile.

Minimalisation: A type of deception that involves downplaying the significance of an event or emotion. A common strategy when dealing with feelings of guilt. Burglars may describe themselves as ‘doing a job’ as a way of minimising the seriousness of their offences. Studies suggest that those that commit sexual offences are particularly prone to minimalisation.

Howard Barbaree (1991): Found among 26 incarcerated rapists, 54% denied they had committed an offence at all and a further 40% minimised the harm they had caused to the victim.

Research Support (Cognitive): Palmer and Hollin (1998) compared moral reasoning in 332 non-offenders and 126 convicted offenders using the Socio Moral Reflection Measure Short Form (SRM-SF) which contains 11 moral dilemma-related questions. the offender group showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-offender group.

Type of Offence (Cognitive): Moral reasoning may depend on the offence. Thornton and Reid (1982) found that people who committed crimes for financial gain were most likely to show pre-conventional moral reasoning than those convicted of impulsive crimes (assault). Pre-conventional moral reasoning tends to be associated with crimes in which offenders believe they could avoid punishment.

Thinking v. Behaviour (Cognitive): Kohlberg’s theory provides insight into the mechanics of the criminal mind - that offenders may be more childlike and egocentric when it comes to making moral judgements than the law-abiding majority.

Real-world Application (Cognitive): CBT aims to challenge irrational thinking and offenders are encouraged to ‘face up’ to what they have done and establish a less distorted view of their actions. Studies suggest that reduced incidence of denial and minimalisation in therapy is highly associated with a reduced risk of reoffending. Suggests the practical value of cognitive distortions.

Type of Offence (Cognitive Distortions): The level of cognitive distortion depends on the type of offence. Howitt and Sheldon (2007) gathered questionnaire responses from sexual offenders and found that non-contact sexual offenders (accessed sexual images on the internet) used more cognitive distortions than contact sex offenders (had physically abused children). Those with a history of offending were also more likely to use distortions as a justification.

Descriptive or Explanatory (Cognitive): They are good at describing the criminal mind and can help in reducing reoffending in the long term but they do not help in predicting future offender behaviour.