Levels of Moral Reasoning:
- Kohlberg applied concept of moral reasoning to criminal behaviour.
- People’s judgements of right and wrong can be shown in a stage theory of moral development – the higher the stage, the more sophisticated the reasoning.
- Based theory off peoples responses to a series of moral dilemmas, such as the Heinz dilemma.
Kohlberg’s model and criminality:
- LEVEL I = Preconventional Morality
- Stage 1 – Punishment Orientation – rules are obeyed to avoid punishments.
- Stage 2 – Instrumental Orientation – rules obeyed for personal gain.
Criminals most likely to belong to these stages, associated with less mature, child-like thinking.
- LEVEL II = Conventional Morality
- Stage 3 – ‘Good boy/girl’ Orientation – rules obeyed for approval
- Stage 4 – rules are obeyed to maintain the social order.
Non-criminals are able to progress to this level.
- LEVEL III = Postconventional Morality
- Stage 5 – Morality of Contract and Individual Rights – rules obeyed if they are impartial; challenged if they infringe on rights.
- Stage 6 – Morality of Conscience – establishes own set of rules in accordance with ethical principles
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Supporting Evidence – Kohlberg et al (1973) – found that violent youths have significantly lower moral reasoning than non-violent youths, even after controlling for social background – supports idea that lower moral reasoning leads to criminal behaviour. Supporting Evidence – Emma Palmer and Clive Hollin (1998) – compared moral reasoning between 210 female non-offenders, 122 male non-offenders and 126 convicted offenders using SRM-SF containing 11 moral dilemma questions, delinquent group showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-delinquent group – supports idea that criminals have lower moral reasoning.
Alternative Models/Cultural Bias – John Gibbs (1979) – proposed a revised version of Kohlbergs’s theory comprising of 2 levels: mature (empathy, social justice, conscience) and immature (avoiding punishment, personal gain); equivalent to preconventional and conventional, but argued to get rid of postconventional as it is biased towards Western culture and did not represent natural maturational stage of cognitive development (Jean Piaget) – suggest that theory is culturally biased and not generalizable. Cause-And-Effect – Krebs and Denton (2005) –analysed real-life situations and found moral reasoning may actually be used to justify offending behaviour, rather than cause it.
Individual Differences – David Thornton and R. L. Reid (1982) – individuals who committed crimes for financial gain were more likely to show preconventional reasoning than those committing impulsive crimes, such as assault, where reasoning of any kind tended to not be evident – suggest that theory is simplistic as it does not account for different types of crime, and may also lack validity in being applied to certain types of crime.
Cognitive Distortions:
- Errors or biases in people’s information processing system due to faulty thinking
- We all occasionally show this, but research has linked this to the way criminals interpret other people’s behaviour and justify their own actions
- Hostile Attribution Bias:
- Evidence suggest propensity to violence may be linked to tendency to misinterpret actions of other – to assume they’re being confrontational when they’re not
- May misread non-aggressive cues (being ‘looked at’) which may trigger a disproportionate or violent response
- Minimalisation:
- Attempt to downplay the seriousness of an offence
- Application of a ‘euphemistic label’ to behaviour (Bandura, 1973)
- Eg: ‘doing my job’
Supporting Evidence for Hostile Attribution Bias – Michael Schonenberg and Aiste Justye (2014) studied 55 violent offenders and non-aggressive offenders, matched control group and presented them with images of emotionally ambiguous faces, found that violent offenders more likely to perceive images as angry or hostile – shows a link between hostile attribution bias and offending. Supporting Evidence for Hostile Attribution Bias – Kenneth Dodge and Cynthia Frame (1982) – showed children video clip of ‘ambiguous provocation’, children who were ‘aggressive’ and ‘rejected’ perceived clip as more hostile than those who were ‘non-aggressive’ and ‘accepted’ – shows evidence of hostile attribution bias linking to aggression, also presents link to rejection in childhood.
Support for Minimalisation – Howard Barbaree (1991) – among 26 incarcerated rapists, 54% denied committing offence and 40% minimised harm caused to victim – evidence for offenders minimising impact of crime
Application – proven beneficial to rehabilitation of sex offenders in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, offenders must ‘face up’ to what they have done, ‘acceptance’ also a key feature of anger management – shows how this approach is useful.
More of a Description – doesn’t really explain offender motives for committing crimes in the first place, doesn’t identify cause of criminal behaviour