cognitive explanations

• what are Cognitive distortions?

  • faulty biased and irrational ways of thinking that mean we perceive ourselves the world or others negatively
• what is hostile attribution bias?

  • assuming the worst. Negative interpretations of someone's behaviour leads to more aggressive behaviour.
• what is an example of hostile attribution bias

  • If someone accidentally nudged you this person would think they did it on purpose and tends to be aggressive back
  • columbine murders- harris and kiebold shot a number of fellow students, being convinced they bullied them they targeted them
• Research support for hostile attribution bias

  Schonenerg and aiste 55 violent offenders were presented with images if emotionally ambiguous facial expressions, when compared witha  control group offenders were more likely than no violent pps to percieve the images as angry and hostile, this suggests that people who end up as violent offenders are more liekly to misinterpretate non verbal cues which shows support for this theory 

  However Pictures very different to real life
• what is Minimalisation?


  the consequences of a situation are under exaggerated to reduce negative emotions like guilt and justify it
• example of minimalisation


  someone stealing from a big business and thinking it won't matter because they are so big they won't lose much
• There has been significant reserach support for minimalisation Kenndedy and grubin found that sex offenders accounts of their crimes often down played their behaviour , some denied it altogether

  Barbaree amongst 26 convicted rapits 54% denied they had committed an offence altogether 40% minimised the harm that they had caused the victim, this supports the idea of cognitive distortion of minimalisation underlies criminal behaviour, can be used to explain offenders rationale
• • Cognitive distortions describe as reductionist as it reduces behaviour down to one cognitive process. limitation as offending behaviour in general is Way more complex than one single cognitive distortion.

  - This ignores biological influence, eyesneck

  • also enviornmental factors and their background. need to look at social and situational factors which could lead a person to offending behaviour
  • therefore important elements need looked at to know how best support those who have the potential to be criminals
  • faulty thought not be the only factor
• Kholberg's study

  •  Longitudinal study, young American males a series of hypothetical philospopihcal and moral dilemmas in the form of short stories. He compared usa to those from eg. canada uk mexico
• Kholberg's findings

  • kholberg from this found a series of stages of moral reasoning, these were passed in a fixed order and he found criminals often didn't reach more than level 1 (lowest level)
  • by the end, most participants hadnt reached final stage
  •  Only 10-15% are capable of abstract thinking necessary for stages 5-6, people take their moral views from those around them
  • Middle class were more advanced in lower class children
• Kholberg's levels of moral reasoning

  1. Pre morality -childlike reasoning, behaviour is motiavted by person gain and fear of punishment , where most criminals stand
  2. Conventional morality- doing what out of desires to  corform,  duty and for good of society
  3. Post conventional morality- doing what is right even if breaking law, following inner conscience with  a belief law is too restrictive , eg.euthansia
• Gender biased- androcentric, all male sample, what he used to form his levels, issues as it is is beta biased and not generalisble to women and lacks external validity, however he generalised this to women Suggested women reason on a lower level than men but instead more recent research by his assistant gilligan  has found they are nto at a lower level of reasoning however just reason in an alternate way whilst men reason on a basis of law and justice whilst women reason on a basis of compassion and caregiving, she criticised kholberg for overlooking this relational perspective in morality.
• Khloberg ‘s theory has real world application, it was observed those growing up in israel kibbutz,( a shared community where they made moral decisions as a group  were more morally advanced , from this )he set up a verity pf cluster school where members resolved and defined disputes as a group which encouraged them to develop into a higher level of moral reasoning. This shows a successful application of his theory and a way of preventing offending behaviour by encouraging delinquent teenagers to access a higher level of moral reasoning.