Psychological explanations: cognitive explanations

• Who is the main researcher?

  Kohlberg
• What did he propose?

  He proposed that peoples decisions and judgements on issues of right and wrong can be summarised in a stage theory of development
• What did this stage theory demonstrate?

  The higher the stage the more sophisticated the reasoning
• What did he base this on?

  Based his theory on people's responses to a sense of moral dilemmas
• What does this suggest for criminals?

  Many studies suggest that criminals tend to show a lower levels of moral reasoning compared to control
• What was Kohlberg's study?

  Using the moral dilemma he found that a group of violent youths were significantly lower in their moral reasoning than non-violent youths even after controlling for social background
• Where are criminal offenders more likely to be classified on the levels of moral reasoning?


  Criminal offenders are more likely to be classified at the pre-conventional level (stages 1 and 2)
• What is this level characterised by?

  Characterised by personal gain, need to gain rewards, associated with a less mature, child like reasoning
• So why do people at this stage commit crimes?

  May commit crime if they think they can get away with it or gain rewards in terms of money, increased respect
• How is this assumption supported?

  Supported by studies that suggest that offenders are often more egocentric and display proper social perspective. Not generous or honest compared to those in higher levels
• What is cognitive distortion?

  Are errors or biases in peoples information processing system characterised by faulty thinking
• What are the 2 examples of cognitive distortion?

  -hostile attribution bias-tendency to misinterpret the actions of other people such as ambiguous faces that can trigger a potential offender to act

  -minimisation-offenders attempt to deny or downplay the severity of an offence and because they don't understand the importance of the event, they are likely to engage in in again
• What study supports the hostile attribution bias?

  Schoneberg answered justye presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions, when compared to control group, the violent offenders were significantly more likely to perceive the images as angry and hostile. This may be the result of being "rejected" and "aggressive" child according to Dodge and Frame
• What study supports the minimisation theory?

  -Barbaree found among 26 incarcerated rapist, 54% denied they committed a criminal offence at Al and further 40% minimised the harm they had caused there victim.

  -pollack and hash mall reported 35% of sample of child molesters argued that the crime they had committed was non-sexual (just tryna be affectionate). And 36% stated the victims had contested
• E-Strength-real life application for cognitive distortion

  -real life application for cognitive distortion

  -particularly in the case of sex offenders as they use minimilisation to justify their crime

  -cognitive therapy such as CBT may specifically tackle this problme and reduce recidivism rates
• E-Limitation-alternative theories for moral reasoning

  -alternative theories for moral reasoning

  -his idea of mature ans immature reasoning are similar to kohlerbeg theory

  -immature reasoning being represented by pre conventional level and mature reasoning being represented by convcetional level

  -a modern update increases its validity
• E-Limitation-Individual differences


  -individual differences may depend on the type of offences

  -langdon suggest that intelligence may be a better predictor of criminality than moral reasoning

  -explains people with low it are actually less likely to commit crime despite the moral reasoning
• E-Limitaion-descriptive not explanatory


  -descriptive and not explanatory

  -useful in predicting reoffending but doesn't give us much insight into why the offender committed crime in the first place