cognitive factors

• cognitive distortions is a form of irrational thinking in that a person's perception of events is wrong but they think it is accurate.
• in the context of criminal behaviours, such distortion allows an offender to deny or rationalise their behaviour.
• hostile attribution bias


  attribution is the "process by which an individual attempts to construct causal explanations for his or her behaviour and the behaviour of others," (Gudjonsson and Singh, 1988.)
• an individual with a hostile attribution bias is more likely to see the benign and innocuos actions of another as hostility directed towards them.
• an individual with a high hostile attribution bias could be inclined to become angry about what they have seen, making them more likely to be aggressive and therefore more likely to engage in criminal behaviour.
• minimalisation


  magnification and minimalisation refer to our perception of the consequences of the situation we find ourselves in, which are either over or under-exaggerated.

  these are both very common cognitive errors that nearly all people will experience in their day-to-day life.
• it has been argued that criminals are prone to minimalistic thinking - they underplay the consequences of their actions, meaning that criminal behaviour can be engaged in with minimal guilt and other negative emotions.
• levels of moral reasoning


  Kohlberg's stages of moral development produce different justifications from criminals for their crimes.
• preconventional: breaking the law is justified if punishment can be avoided or if the rewards outweigh the costs.

  Hollin (2002) found that most criminals are likely to be at the pre-conventional level, so offenders are characteristically less mature in moral reasoning than non-offenders.
• conventional: breaking the law is justified if it helps to maintain relationships or society.
• postconventional: breaking the law is justified if it helps to maintain human rights or further social justice.