Cognitive Explanations

• Cognitive explanations for offending include levels of moral reasoning and cognitive distortions
• Levels of moral reasoning was developed by Kohlberg and refers to the way a person thinks about right and wrong
• The higher the level of moral reasoning, the more the behaviour is driven by a sense of right and wrong rather then punishment or approval
• Level 1 is precoventional morality, including punishment orientation and personal gain
• Level 2 is conventional morality, including 'good boy/girl' orientation and maintenance of the social order
• Level 3 is post-conventional morality, including morality of contract and morality of conscience
• Moral reasoning explains offending as criminals are likely to be at the pre-conventional level which is characterised by punishment and reward orientation
• Moral reasoning explains that breaking the law may be justified by criminals if the rewards outweigh the consequences
• Kohlberg developed a set of moral dilemmas which he used on a set of violent vs non-violent youths
• Kohlberg found that the violent group scored significantly lower on the scales
• Thornton & Reid criticised Kohlberg's theory as it does not explain all types of crime e.g. white-collar crime or impulsive crimes
• White-collar crimes demonstrate post-conventional morality due to the belief that they will evade punishment
• Impulsive crimes tend not to demonstrate any moral reasoning
• Kohlberg's theory is gender and culture biased
• Cognitive Distortions include hostile attribution bias and minimalisation
• Hostile Attribution Bias (HAB) is the tendency to irrationally judge ambiguous situations or the actions of others as aggressive or threatening
• Minimalisation is downplaying the significance of an event or emotion
• Schronenberg & Justyte found that when 55 violent offenders were shown pictures of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions, they were significantly more likely to judge them as aggressive compared to a control group
• Barbaree found that 94% of a sample of convicted rapists showed minimalisations, and 54% argued that their behaviour did not constitute an offence
• Pollock & Hashmall found that over a third of a sample of child molesters argued things like 'I was just being affectionate'