Cognitive explanations to crime

• Kohlberg and criminal behaviour

  he was the first to apply the concept of moral reasoning to criminal behaviour. he proposed that people’s decisions of what is right and wrong can be summarised in a stage theory of moral development.
• Heinz dilemma

  H’s wife is dying from cancer and there is only one drug that can save her. Chemist would only sell it for 10x the price which H couldn’t afford. The chemist refused any deals as he would make lots of money from it. H later went and stole the drug.
• Kohlberg’s study into the Heinz dilemma

  Studied the answers of different aged children to the dilemma. He wanted to see how moral reasoning changed as they got older.
• Cognitive distortions

  errors/biases in people’s info processing systems characterised by faulty thinking. this is linked to the way in which criminals interpret the behaviour of others and justify their own actions.
• what are the 2 examples of cognitive distortions?

  hostile attribution bias and minimalisation
• hostile attribution bias description

  offenders may mis-read non-aggressive behaviour as aggressive, which may trigger a violent response.
• hostile attribution bias research

  Schonenberg and Justye = presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expression. all offenders perceived the images as angry and hostile.
• minimalisation research

  Bombardee = found among 26 incarcerated rapists, 54% denied committing an offence at all. 40% minimised the harm they had caused the victim.
• levels of moral reasoning pyramid (1-5)

  reward/punishment, self-interest, pleasing others, law and order, social contract, principle. (pre-conventional, conventional, post-conventional)
• positive - application of research

  beneficial in the treatment of criminal behaviour. it gives the offenders a less distorted view of their actions.
• negative - it is descriptive and not explanatory

  it is good at describing the criminal mind but less successful when it comes to explaining it. it doesn’t give much insight into why the offender commits a crime in the first place