Criminal Thinking Patterns
Here the focus of the understanding criminality is on the thinking processes of the
criminal – why do some people decide to commit a crime and others don’t? Do we all
make rational choices or could some people be more susceptible to a criminal life
through biology or psychological development throughout childhood and
adolescence? Therefore, this module will be taking a cognitive perspective on crime
and criminality – looking at the thinking processes that people go through and factors
that may affect these processes. The three sub-topic areas that we will be looking at
are:
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Morality and Crime
Social Cognition
Rationality and Choice
This topic we will be mostly looking at the following theories and studies: Kohlberg;
Palmer and Hollin; Blair; Cornish and Clarke; and Rettig.
Morality and Crime
There are many theorists that believe that we develop many important skills and
processes as we get older – through childhood to adolescence. Could morality be
thought of as a similar concept? As we develop and grow older our morality – our
ability to tell right from wrong – goes through stages getting more-and-more
sophisticated? This is exactly what Kohlberg proposes with his theory of moral
development.
Piaget supposes that a child will see situations, and their behaviour within those
situations, in terms of how much damage their behaviour has caused. For example, a
child might expect to be punished more harshly for spilling a glass of juice on a cream
carpet while trying to do a ‘nice thing’ for their mum, while not as much for spilling it
on the kitchen sideboard when told explicitly not to go anywhere near the juice.
Therefore, nothing as complex as motivation is taking into account when morally
evaluating the situation – it is simply based on how much damage they have done.
Kohlberg 1976 – Moral Development
Like other psychologists – most notably Piaget – Kohlberg puts forward a cognitive
development theory (an individual’s cognitive processes develop as they grow) to
understand moral development. Kohlberg’s theory breaks moral development into
three stages, each with two levels, which a child will pass through as they get older.
If a child doesn’t progress pass through the levels their morality will be affected.
Level 1: Preconventional morality
Stage 1
Obedience
and Obedience to those who have power
Punishment
(parents and teachers) is important. The
need to avoid punishment directs actions.
Stage 2
Instrumental
This stage is characterised by the desire to
Purpose
meet ones own needs first and foremost,
while recognising the needs of others
Level 2: Conventional Conformity
Stage 3
Conformity
Stage 4
Law and Order
Roles and responsibilities are important.
Behaviours is judged in terms of good
intentions, and a concern for others.
A commitment to social order and the
upholding of laws, and contributing to the
group or institution is seen as important in
this stage.
Level 3: Autonomous Principles
Stage 5
Social Contract & In this stage self is distinguished from
Individual Rights
others, whilst recognising the importance
of values and rules relative to the group.
Stage 6
Universal Ethical The reason for doing right is governed by
Principles
justice and human rights, a sense of dignity,
and the validity of universal moral
principles.
Levels of moral development (modified from Heinemann, 2005)
From the summary above we can see that an individual will pass through the stages as
they get older. If however, that individual stops progressing, they will have a delayed
moral ability. The third stage of the theory, Autonomous Principles, is quite a
sophisticated level to be at where people are thinking about others and a moral sense
of ‘right and wrong’ – not just what is legislated. Euthanasia is such an example of
moral reasoning at a high level. The person involved may have a loved one request
that they help them end their life early as a result of a terminal illness; law would state
that this is wrong and you would be punished for it; however, you could argue that on
a moral level you ‘did the right thing’.
There have been studies to examine the relationship between moral functioning and
criminality to investigate if morality is a variable influencing if an individual will
become a criminal or not.
Palmer and Hollin 2000 – Correlates of Offending and Morality
Palmer and Hollin wanted to investigate if morality correlated with self-reported
delinquency and other factors that were thought could relate to criminality. Two
samples of males were used to compare results: the first sample contained 97
convicted offenders between the age of 13 and 21; the second sample, a control
group, was made up of 77 non-offenders, aged 12 to 24, from the same area of the
Midlands.
The two samples were given four different psychometric questionnaires and the
results of these questionnaires were to be correlated to see investigate any
relationships between the factors that were being investigated:
1. Sociomoral Reflection Measure (short form) – measured what level of moral
development the participant was functioning at.
2. Extracts from the ‘Own perceptions of Parenting’ – measured perceptions of
parenting (rejection, parenting styles, emotional warmth).
3. Attributions of Intent – measured how the participants perceived ambiguous
situations
4. Self-reported Delinquency Checklist (SRD) – basically a list of crimes; you
put a big old tick next to those that you have committed!
Attributions of intent – this test looked at
how people perceive a situation – do they
read aggressive inferences into an image?
It looks at how people attribute behaviour –
hostile or non-hostile. Participants had to
look at 12 different images and had to
decide if the people within the scenario
were acting with hostile or pro-social
intent. For example, in the image (left) is
the kitten about to eat the chick (hostile
intent) or are they playing together (prosocial behaviour). It is assumed that the more aggressive a person is the more hostile
attributions of intent will be made.
The first finding of the research provided support that the control group was actually
different from the first sample of offenders; the modal score on the Self-reported
Delinquency checklist for the offenders was 24 whereas the score for the control
sample was four. In relation to moral reasoning it was suggested that the offenders
were functioning at around the first level where choices were based on rewards and
punishments. From the Perceptions of Parenting psychometric it was found that the
offenders perceived (important to note the word perceived – this doesn’t actually
mean that their parents were more rejecting, just that it was perceived to be) their
parents to be more rejecting. The offenders also made more hostile attributions of
intent.
Going back to the correlation between morality and criminality, which is what this
study is all about, Palmer and Hollin found that offending scores (based on the SRD)
correlated with perceptions of parental rejection and more hostile attributions of
intent. Consequently, the researchers say that these two variables are significant
predictors of criminality.
Evaluation
Strengths
Psychometrics tests: P&H used a
selection
of
psychometric
tests.
Psychometric tests tend to be both valid
and reliable.
Sample: A good sized sample was used
and importantly, P&H had a control
condition of non-offenders to compare
the results to.
Weaknesses
Generalisations: only male participants
from the Midlands area and a small
selection of offences had been committed
by the offenders, we will have problems
applying what was found to other
demographics and offences.
Correlation
Analysis:
correlational
analysis only tells us about relationships
between different variables and we are
not able to infer cause-and-effect from
the findings.
Self-report measures: there could be
problems with social desirability on the
SRD checklist.
Social Cognition and Crime
This sub-topic is going to look at how external (or situational) factors can influence
how people think about behaving. We all behave in different ways; many times this
behaviour is based on other people’s cues (things that they do). For example, you’re
in a nightclub and you move over to dance with the very attractive lady on the dance
floor. If that lady turns her back to you, talks to her friends, and does everything she
can to distance herself from you (less fleeing the building) you will gracefully leave
the dance floor – pride only slightly damaged. As a result of a behavioural cue you
behaved in a particular way.
Can this theory of social cognition be used to understand offending behaviour? Blair
(1997) believes it can and that offenders might not have the necessary cognitive
abilities to assess situations properly.
Blair 1997 – Violence Inhibiting Mechanism in Pathological
Offenders
Blair put forward the idea that we each have a violence inhibiting mechanism (VIM)
inside us. This mechanism is activated by cues in the environment around us, and if
stimulated enough it will cause a withdrawal from that situation.
If an individual is present at a violent situation
like a fight, they might decide to take part. At
some point during the assault a critical event
might happen such as someone being knocked
on conscious or maybe someone starts crying.
Anyone with a working VIM would see this cue
and would withdraw from the situation (stop
hitting that person); someone without a VIM or
with a VIM that isn’t functioning would not
react to this cue and would continue assaulting
the person.
You could think of the VIM as that little voice
inside you telling you to stop when your little
brother/sister starts crying after you went that
little bit too far pulling their hair or giving a
chinese burn! That little voice tells you to stop
hurting that person and you do – but what happens if you can’t hear that little voice?
What would you do?
Blair wanted to investigate the psycho-physiological (cognitive and behavioural)
responsiveness of psychopathic (a condition characterised by lack of empathy or
conscience) individuals to distress cues, threatening and neutral stimuli. Participants
were all members of the special prison Broadmoor; eighteen inmates were classified
as being psychpathic and eighteen as non-psychopathic; all of the men were serving
life sentences for murder or manslaughter.
Each of the participants were shown a slide show containing different images
classified as either distressful images, neutral images, or threatening images.
Distressing images included things such as a crying face or a scared child; threatening
images included a shark or a pointed gun; and neutral images included hair dryer or a
book. Physiological responses (skin conductivity, heart rate) were measured when
each of the image types were shown.
It was found that the psychopathic patients shown no physiological response to the
pictures displaying distress cues whereas the non-psychopathic patients did show a
respose. Blair concluded that the cause of this lack of responsiveness was that the
pathological patients VIM was not functioning. Further support to this was found in
the fact that there was no difference in the physiological responsiveness to threatening
images.
Evaluation
Strengths
Useful: we could test people for a lack
of VIM prior to offending and
implement treatment programs.
Cause & Effect: as a comparison sample
of non-psychopathic offenders were
used we can imply that the lack of VIM
is a cause of psychopathic offending.
Weaknesses
Generalisations: only psychopaths were
used so might not have much relevance to
non-psychopathic offenders and violent
offences.
Sample: a small sample of participants
were used – only 18 in each condition.
Rationality and Choice
In everyday life we all make rational decisions based on the information that is
available to us at the time. When we make such a decision we way the costs and the
benefit for us – what is the cost to us now and in the future; and what will I get from
this course of action? If the cost is higher than the benefit we will not do anything.
Research into criminality is more recently moving towards the idea that criminals,
like the rest of us, are rational beings that make rational choices based on available
information.
Now, think of the box office thriller Ocean’s
Eleven – here we see rationality at it’s best.
Imagine the scene – Mr Clooney is rallying
up his group telling them his plan. “The bad
news first …” he starts; he then lists the
problems they will encounter: lift shafts;
armed guards; CCTV; locked doors; secret
codes; a vault 200 ft below ground. Here
we’re left thinking why are we doing this – as you would as a rational being. The cost
seems so high that one would be mad to consider working on the job. Then we are
told “…on a weeknight the vault holds $60million, at the weekend $90million, and on
a fight night, the night we’re going to rob it – $150million – without a sweat”. Well,
the benefit for working on the job just got a lot better. A rational decision waiting to
be made.
Cornish & Clark 1987 – Choice Structuring Properties
Here we look at what process potential offenders will go through when making a
decision as to committing a crime or not. We need to be crime specific when
applying rational choice to offending decisions. This means that each crime, even
each individual offence, will have differing costs and benefits that will need to be
taken into consideration when making a rational choice. All of these variations
combine to make criminal opportunities differentially attractive to particular
individuals and groups. There are called choice structuring properties.
Cornish and Clark listed some of the possible choice structuring properties for crimes
involving cash as:
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Availability (number of targets,
availability)
Awareness of method
Likely cash yield per crime
Planning necessary
Resources required
Solo vs. assistants required
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Time required to commit
Severity of punishment
Confrontation with victim
Social status
Fencing (getting rid of goods that are
stolen)
Moral evaluation
Whilst this approach does take into account the differing choices made by offenders
when deciding if they should commit a crime it does miss the fact that different
people could interpret situations differently. For example, some offenders may be
willing to take more risks than others, whereas others will think of so of the choice
structuring properties (above) as not relevant. Therefore, it is not taking into account
individual differences between individuals.
Taking into account the above offenders will make a decision based on weighing the
costs of committing the offence against the benefits. If the benefits of committing the
crime are greater than the costs you will commit the crime.
Rettig 1966 – Demonstration of Rational Choice
This study hoped to demonstrate that people do employ rational choice when making
a decision to commit a crime or not. In this study participants were given a
hypothetical scenario describing an opportunity to commit a crime. Within the
conditions different participants were given different information about the situation
(likely benefits, possibility of being caught, degree of punishment). These scenarios
were given to groups of students to complete and make decisions on.
This is an example of a hypothetical scenario (from Jamie’s head – not Rettig).
Which one do you think is more likely to be committed and why?
Scenario One
 Car park on a deserted industrial
estate.
 Midnight
 No one around
 No CCTV
 £1,000 in view on the passenger seat
Scenario Two
 Prince’s Quay car park
 12 noon
 Lots of people around
 CCTV & Guards patrolling
 £20 in view on the passenger seat.
The findings from his study suggested that the chance of getting punished and the
degree of punishment had the most influence on a persons decision to commit a
crime.
Evaluation
Strengths
Useful: we could make punishments
harder for offences to make the costs
outweigh the benefits of offending.
Control: Rettig was able to control all
aspects of the hypothetical scenarios so
could identify which variable had the
most influence on offending behaviour.
Weaknesses
Generalisations: all the participants were
students. These could be different to
‘criminals’
Individual Differences: there are many
individual motivations for criminality.
Deterministic: just because the benefits
outweigh the costs doesn’t mean that
people will commit a crime.
One issue that we must be aware of when discussing rationality and choice in relation
to offending behaviour is the concept of choice. The theories in this area tend to
assume that all offenders have a choice over offending and this is not always the case.
Many offences have motivations that negate choice, for example, a person who kills
someone in the heat of an argument or someone stealing food for a starving family.
Do these offenders really make a rational choice before committing the crime?
Consequently, when summarising rational choice theory, we need to understand that it
is not really a theory of criminal thinking, but an approach that some criminals might
take to offending behaviours. There are other factors that could have a much more
profound effect on criminal thinking patterns, and individual differences are massive.
Past Exam Questions
Section A
a) Describe evidence that suggests a link between morality and crime. [6]
b) Evaluate methods use to investigate the link between morality and crime. [10]
Section B
a) Describe what psychologists have learnt about criminal thinking patterns. [10]
b) Evaluate what psychologists have learnt about criminal thinking patterns. [16]
c) Suggest how the moral reasoning of a young offender can be improved. [8]