AO1

• Cognitive distortions are errors or biases in people's information processing system which are characterised by faulty thinking.
• Gibbs (1993) suggested that people use cognitive distortions to rationalise their behaviour.
• Cognitive distortions may blame other people and mislabel an offenders behaviour or actions.
• Researchers linked cognitive distortions to the way in which offenders interpret other people's behaviour and justify their own actions.
• Criminals make attributions for their crimes that allow them to reduce their feelings of guilt.
• Cognitive distortions can make some people more likely to commit crime because of the way they process information.
• There are two types of cognitive distortion; hostile attribution bias and minimalisation.
• Attribution bias is the tendency to explain a person's behaviour by referring to their character rather than any situational factor. This can be internal of external.
• An internal attribution bias is when a person accepts responsibility for their own behaviour and see the cause as within themselves.
• An external attribution bias is when a person sees the cause of their behaviour as outside of them.
• Many offenders will adopt an external attribution bias, which allows them to blame someone or something in the environment, rather than take responsibility for their own actions.
• Offenders may use minimisation to justify their behaviour, such as saying that they didn’t mean it or that no one was hurt.
• Minimalisation is where people downplay the seriousness of their own behaviour.
• Gudjonsson & Bownes (2002) examined the relationship between the type of offence and the attributions offenders made about their criminal behaviour. They concluded that violent criminals are more likely to make external attributions for their crimes.
• Hostile attribution bias is the tendency to interpret the behaviour of others as threatening, aggressive or both.
• People who exhibit the hostile attribution bias think that ambiguous behaviour from other people is hostile and directed at them personally.
• Offenders often respond to perceived hostility in a violent or aggressive manner.
• Dodge et al (1990) gave 128 boys in a young offenders institute a task to assess hostile attributions. They found a correlation between attributional biases and reactive angry aggression.
• Bandura (1973) refers to minimalisation by applying a euphemistic label to behaviour. For example criminals may believe their actions are justified as they are doing it for the good of their family.
• A moral disengagement mechanism identified by Bandura (1973) is euphemistic labelling. This mechanism refers to the process of altering language in order to detract from the emotional intensity of the reality being referenced.
• Research studies suggest that individuals who commit sexual offences are particularly prone to minimalisation.