Suggest that there are ways of thinking, internal mental processes about the world and moral decisions that lead to offending behaviour
Levels of Moral Reasoning - Kohlberg (1969)
Through development we gain greater moral maturity in 3 levels
Preconventional Morality - Criminals are stuck at this level, how actions only effect personally
Conventional Morality - What other people would think of action
Postconventional Morality - Based on the good of everyone
Cognitive Distortions
Failures of the mind in accurately representing reality, leading to criminal behaviour
Hostile Attribution Bias
Inferences on peoples internal mental states are biased, assuming negative intentions
Minimalisation
Interpreting our own behaviour as less serious that it really is
(+) A03: Schonenberg + Aiste (2014)
Asked violent offenders in prison to interpret emotionally ambiguous pictures
Found that they would interpret it as aggression compared to a matched control group
Supporting the concept of hostile attribution bias
(+) A03: Hollin + Palmer (1998)
Male offenders showed poorer moral reasoning on 10/11 questions compared to non-offending males, suggesting offenders do have developmental moral deficits
(-) A03: Hypothetical
Kohlberg's theory is based off the hypothetical Heinz dilemma task, it is likely due to social desirability bias people are unlikely to respond honestly, limiting generalisability to real-life offences
