Cognitive distortions

• What are cognitive distortions?

  • Errors or biases in people's information processing systems that are characterised by fault 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?

  • Suggests violence is often associated with a tendency to perceive other people's acts as aggressive, and assuming others are being confrontational when they are not
  • For example they may misread non-aggressive cues such as being looked at that triggers a disproportionate response
• What is the minimalisation bias as a cognitive distortion?

  • An attempt to deny or downplay the seriousness of an offence, elsewhere referred to as the application of a 'euphemistic label' for behaviour (Bandura 1973)
  • For example burglars may suggest they were just supporting their family as a way of minimising the seriousness of their offence
• What is one strength of the cognitive distortions explanation?

  • Research support for HAB: Dodge and Frame (1982) showed children an "ambiguous provocation" and those who were previously judges as aggressive were more likely to perceive the situation as hostile
  • Schonenberg and Aiste (2014) presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions - they were more likely to perceive the images as angry when compared to a control group
• What is another strength of the cognitive distortions explanation?

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

  • Real-world application: can be used in the treatment of (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 sessions had a 44% reduction in arrests - shows that the theory has contributed to the reduction of criminal behaviour
• What is one limitation of the cognitive distortions explanation?

  • Type of offence: Howitt and Sheldon (2007) gathered questionnaire responses from sexual offenders and found that non-contact sexual offenders (sexual images on the internet) used more cognitive distortions than contact sex offenders (who physically abused children)
  • Those who had previous offending history were also more likely to use distortions as a justification, suggesting they are not used in the same way by all offenders