Cognitive Explanation Of Offending

• Cognitive Distortions

  •Cognitive distortions are faulty, biased and irrational ways of thinking that mean we perceive ourselves, other people and/or the world in a way that does not match reality and is usually negative. Therefore, a person’s perception of events is wrong, but they think it is accurate.
• Cognitive Distortions

  •Cognitive distortions are faulty, biased and irrational ways of thinking that mean we perceive ourselves, other people and/or the world in a way that does not match reality and is usually negative.•Therefore, a person’s perception of events is wrong, but they think it is accurate.•In the context of offending behaviour, such distortions allow an offender to deny (to reduce negative emotions) or rationalise (justify) their criminal behaviour.
• Cognitive Distortions

  •There are two examples of cognitive distortions which are particularly relevant to crime:–Hostile attribution bias–Minimalisation (or minimisation)
• Hostile Attribution Bias

  •Hostile attribution bias is the tendency to misinterpret or misread other people’s actions, words and/or expressions as aggressive, provocative and/or threatening when in reality they are not. Offenders may misread non-aggressive cues, e.g. being ‘looked at’, which may trigger a disproportionate and often violent response (e.g. assault). This allows offenders to rationalise their offending behaviour by blaming other factors for it e.g. blaming the victim.
• Minimisation


  is the attempt to downplay the seriousness (or trivialising the importance) of one’s own offence to explain the consequences as less significant or damaging than they really are. This helps the individual to accept the consequences of their own offences and reduce the negative emotions such as guilt associated with their crimes. For example, when planning a crime, a burglar might think that stealing a few things from a wealthy family ‘won’t really affect their lives’, or that they are ‘supporting their family’ or ‘doing a job’.
• Hostile Attribution Basis

  •Hostile attribution bias is the tendency to misinterpret or misread other people’s actions, words and/or expressions as aggressive, provocative and/or threatening when in reality they are not.•Offenders may misread non-aggressive cues, e.g. being ‘looked at’, which may trigger a disproportionate and often violent response (e.g. assault).•This allows offenders to rationalise their offending behaviour by blaming other factors for it e.g. blaming the victim.
• Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning

  •Moral reasoning refers to how an individual draws on their own value system to determine whether an action is right or wrong.•Kohlberg suggested that people’s decisions and judgements on issues of right or wrong can be summarised in a stage theory of moral development – the higher the stage, the more sophisticated the moral reasoning, which results in a more logically consistent and morally mature form of understanding.
• Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning

  •People progress through he stages as a consequence of biological maturity and by having opportunities to discuss and develop their thinking (e.g. perspective taking).•The theory was developed by interviewing boys and men about the reasons for moral decisions.•The theory has three levels, and there are two stages within each stage.
• How This Links To Offending Behaviour

  •Criminal offenders are more likely to be classified at the pre-conventional level whereas non-criminals are more likely to have progressed to the conventional level and beyond.•The pre-conventional level is characterised by a need to avoid punishment (punishment orientation) and gain rewards (reward orientation), and is associated with less mature, child-like reasoning.
• How This Links To Offending Behaviour

  •Individuals at this level may commit crime if they can get away with it (avoid punishment) or gain rewards in the form of money, respect etc. because they believe that breaking the law is justified if the rewards outweigh the costs or if punishment can be avoided. •
• Eval-Research Support

  •Palmer and Hollin (1998) compared moral reasoning between 210 female non-offenders, 122 male non-offenders and 126 convicted offenders using 11 moral dilemma-related questions. The delinquent group showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-delinquent group.••This is consistent with Kohlberg’s predictions about offenders being classified at the pre-conventional level of moral reasoning, supporting his theory. It has been suggested that this may be due to a lack of role playing opportunities in childhood, and therefore such opportunities should be provided.
• Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

  • Encourages offenders to 'face up' to what they have done
  • Establishes a less distorted view of their actions
• Reduced incidence of denial and minimalisation in therapy


  Highly correlated with a reduced risk of reoffending
• Anger management

  • Reduced incidence of denial and minimalisation is a key feature
• Cognitive explanations have important real-world applications and therefore external validity
• Changing offenders' thoughts

  Can help to reduce reoffending risk
• Cognitive distortions may have played a role in their offending initially
• Eval- Description Rather Than Explanation

  •They are essentially ‘after the fact’ theories, and although they may be useful when predicting reoffending, they tend not to give us much insight into why the offender committed the crime in the first place.••This suggests that the theories may not be entirely internally valid as cause and effect cannot be established.
• Eval- Generalisability

  •When Kohlberg studied women, he found that they were less morally developed than men. His beta bias meant that he ended up exaggerating the differences between men and women (alpha bias).••Gilligan’s (1982) research found that men favoured a justice orientation whilst women favoured a caring orientation. Neither is ‘better’, they are just different. As such, Kohlberg’s theory cannot be considered an externally valid theory of offending behaviour as it may not apply to women in the same way as men.