Cognitive distortions

• Cognitive distortions

  faulty, biased and irrational ways of thinking that mean we perceive ourselves, other people and the world inaccurately and usually negatively
• hostile attribution bias

  a propensity for violence is often associated with a tendency to misinterpret the actions of other people

  offenders may misread non-aggressive cues and this may trigger a disproportionate,often violent, response.

  stems from childhood, children who had been identified as aggressive interpreted the situation as hostile when showed a clip of an ambitious situation
• minimisation

  an attempt to deny or down play the seriousness of an offence and has elsewhere been referred to as the application of a ‘euphemistic label’ for behaviour

  for instance, burglars may describe themselves as ‘doing a job’ or ‘supporting my family’ as a way of minimising the seriousness of their offence
• minimisation study

  Barbra found that amongst 26 incarcerted rapists, 54% denied they had committed a crime and a further 40% minimised the impact that their crime had on the victim
• A strength of cognitive distortions is its application to therapy.

  Cognitive behaviour therapy 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. Studies suggest that reduced incidence of denial and minimalisation in therapy is highly associated with a reduced risk of reoffending

  This suggests that the theory of cognitive distortions has practical value.
• A limitation is the level of cognitive distortion depends on the type of offence.

  gathered questionnaire responses from sexual offenders.

  Contrary to what the researchers predicted, they found that non-contact sex offenders used more cognitive distortions than contact sex offenders

  Those who had a 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.