Cognitive explanation- Psychological explanation

• 2 cognitive explanations of offending behaviour

  • Level of moral reasoning
  • Cognitive distortions
• Who introduced the level of moral reasoning explanation?

  • Kohlberg, was the first researcher to apply the concept of moral reasoning to offending behaviour.
  • He proposed that people’s decisions and judgements on issues of right and wrong can be summarised in a stage theory of moral reasoning.
  • The higher the stage= the more sophisticated reasoning.
• Level 1- Preconventional morality

  Stage 1: Punishment orientation

  • Rules are obeyed to avoid punishment

  Stage 2: Instrumental orientation of personal gain

  • Rules are obeyed for personal gain
• Level 2: Conventional morality

  Stage 3: ’Good boy’ or ‘good girl’ orientation

  • Rules are obeyed for approval

  Stage 4: Maintenance of the social order

  • Rules are obeyed to maintain the social order
• Level 3: Postconventional morality

  Stage 5: Morality of contract and individual rights

  • Rules are obeyed if they are important; democratic rules are challenged if they infringe on the rights of others.

  Stage 6: Morality of conscience

  • The individuals establishes his or own rules in accordance with a personal set of ethical principles
• What did Kohlberg based is theory of moral reasoning on?

  • Kohlberg based his theory on people’s responses to a series of moral dilemmas.
  • Such as Heinz Dilemma
• What does the Heinz Dilemma study suggest?

  • Kohlberg et al, found using his moral dilemmas, a group of violent youths were at a significantly lower level of moral development than non-violent youths, even after controlling for social background.
  • This suggests that offenders tend to show a lower level of moreal reasoning than non-offenders
• What level would criminals likely to be at in Kohlberg’s model?

  • Offenders are more likely to be classified at the pre-conventional level of Kohlbergs model
  • The pre-conventional level is characterised by a need to avoid punishment and gain rewards, less mature and child-like reasoning.
• What behaviours are associated with a higher level in Kohlberg’s moral reasoning stages?

  • Sympathise more with the rights of others
  • Honesty
  • Generosity
  • Non-violence
• Research support for Kohlberg’s level of moral reasoning stages explanation

  • Palmer and Hollin, 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 e.g keeping a promise for a friend
  • The results found offenders showed less mature moral reasoning than non-offenders.
  • This suggests that Kohlberg’s predictions are accurate as lower moral reasoning is associated with offending behaviour.
• Moral thinking VS Moral behaviour are not the SAME

  • Critics of Kohlberg’s research have suggested that the moral dilemma techniques may be a poor predictor of real life behaviour.
  • For instance, the Heinz dilemma is hypothetical and may not reflect the moral decisions that someone would exercise in real life.
  • This means the technique is low in external validity and it may be more useful to understand moral behaviour as not everyone who had criminal thoughts will act on them.
• Moral reasoning depends on the type of offence

  • Thornton and Reid found that people who commit crimes for financial gain e.g robbery were more likely to show pre-conventional moral reasoning, than those convicted of impulsive crimes e.g assault.
  • Pre-conventional moral reasoning tends to be associated with crimes in which offenders believe they have a good chance of evading punishment.
  • This suggests that Kohlberg’s theory may not apply to all forms of crime.
• Cognitive distortions

  • Refer to faulty, biased and irrational ways of thinking that mean were perceive ourselves, other people and the world inaccurately and usually negatively.
• 2 examples of cognitive distortions

  • Hostile attribution bias
  • 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.
• How does hostile attribution bias lead to violence?

  • Offenders may mis-read non-aggressive cues, such as being looked at and this may trigger disproportionate, often violent responses.
• Research support for hostile attribution bias

  • Schonenberg and Jusyte,
  • Presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions.
  • When compared to a non-aggressive matched control group, the violent offenders were more likely to perceive the images as angry and hostile.
• Research support for the roots of hostile attribution bias

  • Dodge and Frame, showed children a video clip of ‘ambiguous provocation’ where the intension was neither hostile or accidental.
  • Children who had been identified as ‘aggressive’ prior to the study interpreted the situation as more hostile than those classed as ‘non-aggressive’
• Minimalisation


  A type of deception that involves downplaying the significance of an event or an emotion. A common strategy when dealing with feelings of guilt
• Example of minimalisation

  • A burglar may describe themselves as ‘doing a job’ or ‘supporting my family’ as a way of minimising the seriousness of their offences.
• Research support for minimalisation

  • Barbaree, found among 26 incarcerated rapists, 54% denied they had committed an offence at all and a further 40% minimise the harm they had caused to the victim.
• Real world application for cognitive distortions

  • Application to therapy
  • CBT aims to challenge irrational thinking. In the case of offending behaviour, offenders are encouraged to ‘face up’ to what they have done and establish a less distorted view of their actions
  • Harkins et al, suggests that reduced incidence of denial and minimalisation in therapy is highly associated with the reduced risk of reoffending
  • This suggests that the theory of cognitive distortions has practical value.
• Cognitive distortion theories do not explain or help predict future offender behaviour

  • There is a large body of evidence in psychology which suggests that attitudes or beliefs are weakly correlated with actual behaviour.
  • We cannot assume that just because someone has distorted thinking that they will become an offender.
  • Therefore if we want to predict whether someone will go on to offend we need to understand, rather than describe the causes of their behaviour
• How does cognitive distortions depend on the type of offence

  • Howitt and Sheldon gathered questionnaires responses from sexual offenders. Contrary to what researchers predicted, they found that non-contact sex offended (accessed images on the internet) used more cognitive distortions than contact sex offenders (had previously abused children)
  • Those who had previous history of offending were also more likely to use distortions as a justification.
  • This suggests that distortions are not used in the same way by all offenders.