Evaluation

• Evidence supporting moral development

  Chen and Howitt

  Assessed socio-moral development of offenders v controls, finding that offenders scored significantly lower than non-offenders

  This demonstrates that offenders are less morally developed than non-offenders, which reinforces the credibility of Kohlberg’s moral development theory of offending
• Evidence supporting cognitive distortions

  Barbaree (1991) - found that up to 94% of convicted rapists showed evidence of minimalisation

  Pollock and Hashmall (1991) - found that over a third of child molesters justified their behaviour in this way
• Weakness - Explanatory Power - Moral development

  Gilligan (1982)

  Theory is based on work with all male samples, so gender biased

  Kohlberg’s theory focuses on justice this too much, which is typically a more male approach to moral reasoning

  He overlooks ‘care’ and ‘empathy’ which is typically a more male approach
• Weakness - explanatory power - Moral development

  Gibbs (1979)

  Argued that Kohlberg’s stages were culture-biased (towards western culture) and that the post conventional level should be abandoned because it wasn‘t a ’natural’ level of reasoning

  He proposed a revision, essentially discarding level 3 and distinguishing between mature and immature
• Lacks Explanatory Power - Cognitive Distortion

  Distortions may explain the immediate cause of offending, for example through hostile attribution bias

  However, they cannot explain the origin of causes of crime

  Researchers have argued that it’s likely that another factor causes distortions themselves, such as upbringing or neurochemical factors

  Critics point out that some offenders apply factors like minimalisation after their offences as a justification, rather than the distortion leading to an offence

  Therefore, cognitive distortion lacks explanatory power as a theory of offending
• Strength - Applications - Moral development

  Blackburn (1993)

  Low moral reasoning stems from lack of experience/role play in childhood

  Therefore, building in role play and moral reasoning into schools to prevent this

  Gilligan worked with this, making ‘Just communities’