Psychological Explanations: Cognative Explanations
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Kohlberg proposed that people’s decisions and judgements about right and wrong can be identified in his theory of
Moral development
The higher the stage
The more sophisticated the reasoning
Kohlberg et al date
1973
Kohlberg et al used a moral dilemma technique and found
Criminal offenders tend to be at the preconventional Level
The preconventional Level
A need to avoid punishment and gain rewards, Less mature, childlike reasoning.
Non criminals progress to the
Conventional level and beyond
Offenders may commit crimes if they can
Get away with it or gain rewards
what are the rewards?
money or respect
research shows that offenders are often
self-centered (egocentric) and display poorer social perspective-taking skills
individuals who reason at a higher level tend to
sympathies more and exhibit behaviors such as honesty, generosity and non-violence
cognitive distortions are
errors or biases in peoples information processing systems characterized by faulty thinking
we all occasionally exhibited
faulty thinking
although we all exhibit faulty thinking, research shows this is a
much more typical way for criminals to interpret their behavior and justify their actions
Schonenberg and Justye date
2014
Schonenberg and Justye found that violent offenders were more likely then non offenders to percieve
ambiguous facial expressions as angry and hostile
Schonenberg and Justye findings
offenders misred non agressive cues and this can trigger a disproportionate and violent responce
minimalisation reduces a persons
sense of guilt
minimalisation example: burglars may describe themselves as
“doing a job” or “supporting my family” as a way of minimalising the seriousness of their actions and their sense of guilt.
Pollock and Hashmall date
1991
Pollock and Hashmall found that
35% of a sample of child molesters say their crime was non-sexual
Pollock and Hashmall also found that
36% of offenders stated the victim consented
Palmer and Hollin date
1998
Palmer and Hollin used a scale of
11 moral dilemma-related questions
Palmer and Hollin findings
offenders showed less mature moral reasoning than a non-offending control group