PSY211 Final: PSY211 Introduction to Forensic Psychology Exam Notes
12 May 2018
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Chapter 1
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES
MORAL REASONING THEORY:
Moral reasoning – refers to how individuals reason about and justify their
behaviour with respect to moral issues
• Most well known approach to moral reasoning → cognitive-
developmental approach – proposed by Piaget and developed by
Kohlberg
Kohlbergs theory is composed of stages of moral reasoning through which
people progress, with reasoning becoming more complex
• Theory revised by Gibbs into a theory of sociomoral reasoning → roles of
social perspective-talking and empathy given greater emphasis
• Gibbs only focuses on first 4 stages
Gibbs’ stages of sociomoral reasoning
Immature moral reasoning
Mature moral reasoning
Stage 1: Unilateral and physicalistic
Reasoning refers to powerful authority
figures and the physical consequences
of behaviour
)ndividuals show little or no
perspective-taking
Stage 3: Mutual and prosocial
Reasoning reflects an understanding of
interpersonal relationships and the
norms/expectations associated with
these.
Empathy and social perspective-taking
are apparent, along with appeals to
ones own conscience
Stage 2: Exchanging and instrumental
Reasoning incorporates a basic
understanding of social interaction.
However, this is typically in terms of
cost/benefit deals, with the benefits to
the individual being of most
importance
Stage 4: Systemic and standard
Reasoning reflects an understanding of
complex social systems, with appeals
to societal requirements, basic rights
and values and character/integrity
Kohlberg/Gibbs theories → possible to morally justify offending behaviours at
each of the stages:
• Stage 1 – offending is morally justified if punishment can be avoided
• Stage 2 – offending is morally justified if the benefits to the individual
outweigh the costs
• Stage 3 – offending is morally justified if it maintains personal
relationships
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Stage 4 – offending is morally justified if it maintains society or is
sanctioned by a social institution
Research shows that moral immaturity of young offenders is consistent across
different values, rather than only for those related to offending
Gibbs → also studied role of cognitive distortions
• Main offence-supporting distortion is egocentric bias, which is both
characteristic of immature moral reasoning and the thinking styles of the
offender
Number of secondary cognitive distortions is proposed to support egocentricity
• Hostile attitbution bias
• Blaming others or external factors rather than oneself for behaviour that
harms others
• Minimising consequences/mislabelling ones own antisocial behaviour in
order to reduce guilt and regret
Within moral reasoning theory framework → offending behaviour is a result of
sociomoral developmental delay beyond childhood, accompanied by an
egocentric bias
SOCIAL INFORMATION-PROCESSING THEORY:
• Mostly applied to explain aggression and delinquent behaviour
Crick and Dodge – 1994 - 6-step model of social information-processing that
describes how individuals perceive their social world and process info about it,
and the influence of previous experiences on these processes
1. Encoding of social cues
2. Interpretation and mental representation of the situation
3. Clarification of goals/outcomes for the situation
4. Access or construction of responses for the situation
5. Choice of response
6. Performance of chosen response
Model is conceptualised as a circular process
• At all steps, processing is influenced by social knowledge structures based
on past experiences (e.g. social schema and scripts)
Response evaluation and decision (RED) model – outlines a number of criteria
used when evaluating responses, including:
• Perceived efficacy and value of the response
• Perceived efficacy and value of the outcome behaviour
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
SOCIAL INFORMATION-PROCESSING AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR:
At first 2 stages → individuals experience a range of problems in encoding and
interpreting social cues → leads to inaccurate representation of situation
Aggressive people →
• Perceive fewer social cues
• Take more notice of aggressive cues
• Pay attention to cues at the end of interactions
• Rely more on internal schema when interpreting situations
• Have hostile attribution bias
Third step → aggressive people tend to have dominance and revenge-based
goals, rather than prosocial goals
• Generate fewer responses → limited repertoire from which to draw
Fifth step → aggressive individuals evaluate responses by different criteria,
rating aggressive responses more positively and having more +ve outcome
expectancies of self-efficacy for aggression
Social information-processing is influential in the development of juvenile
delinquency and adult offending
• More steps at which individuals exhibit problems → greater level of
aggressive and antisocial behaviour
THEORIES, EVIDENCE AND CRIME
INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE:
British crime survey – an annual survey that measures the amount of crime in
England and Wales by asking a sample of the population about their experiences
of crime in the preceding year
• Oct 2009 and September 2010 → violent crime 21.5% of offences
• Remained stable for a number of years
Crimes included under violence:
• Murder
• Manslaughter
• Robbery
• Domestic violence
Polaschek research into violent offences
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Moral reasoning theory: behaviour with respect to moral issues: most well known approach to moral reasoning cognitive- Moral reasoning refers to how individuals reason about and justify their developmental approach proposed by piaget and developed by. Reasoning refers to powerful authority figures and the physical consequences of behaviour. Reasoning incorporates a basic understanding of social interaction. However, this is typically in terms of cost/benefit deals, with the benefits to the individual being of most importance. Reasoning reflects an understanding of interpersonal relationships and the norms/expectations associated with these. Empathy and social perspective-taking are apparent, along with appeals to one(cid:495)s own conscience. Reasoning reflects an understanding of complex social systems, with appeals to societal requirements, basic rights and values and character/integrity each of the stages: Gibbs(cid:495) also studied role of cognitive distortions. Within moral reasoning theory framework offending behaviour is a result of sociomoral developmental delay beyond childhood, accompanied by an egocentric bias.
