Cognitive distortions

• What are cognitive distortions as a cognitive explanation for offending behaviour?

  • Cognitive distortions are errors or irrational biases in people's information processing systems, characterised by faulty thinking
  • Criminals misinterpret other people's behaviour and use this to justify their own actions
• What is the hostile attribution bias as a cognitive distortion?

  • HAB: Criminal violence is caused by the perception that other people's acts are aggressive
  • People may be perceived as confrontational when they are not e.g. "he was giving me a funny look" as a reason for attacking someone
• What is the minimalisation bias as a cognitive distortion?

  • Downplaying the seriousness of an offence
  • Bandura (1973) - criminals give euphemistic labels to their crime and underplay their offences e.g. pedophiles may claim they "were just being friendly"
• What is research support for the hostile attribution bias?

  • Dodge and Frame (1982): children were shown an "ambiguous provocation" - those who were identified as aggressive were more likely to perceive the situation as hostile
  • Schonenberg and Aiste (2014): 55 violent offenders were shown ambiguous facial expressions - they were more likely to perceive the images as angry compared to a control group
• What is research support for the minimalisation bias?

  • Barbaree (1991): Out of 26 rapists, 54% denied they had committed the crime at all and 40% minimised the harm they caused to the victim
  • Pollock and Hashmall (1991): 35% of a sample of child molesters said their crime was non-sexual, 36% claimed the victim gave consent
• What is a strength of the cognitive distortions explanation?

  • Can be used in treatment of criminals/potential criminals
  • Heller et al (2013): used cognitive behavioural techniques to reduce judgement and errors in decision-making in a group of young men from disadvantaged groups in Chicago
  • Those who attended 13 1 hour sessions had a 44% reduction in arrests, showing that an understanding of cognitive distortions has contributed to the reduction of criminal behaviour