Download Social Cognition and Crime

Social Cognition and Crime
Psychology and Crime
Social Cognition of Crime
 Attribution
theory
 Locus of Control
 Impulsivity
 Learned Helplessness
 Cognitive Scripts
 Communication model
Social Cognition/Attribution
Theory
Social Cognition/Attribution
Theory

Everyone is a naïve psychologist (Heider)


Internal/External attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error (Ross)
 Actor/Observer Difference (Jones & Nisbett)
 Effects of Attributions (Jones, Rock et al.)
 Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Social Cognition/Attribution
Theory

Everyone is a naïve psychologist (Heider)


Internal/External attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error (Ross)
 Actor/Observer Difference (Jones & Nisbett)
 Effects of Attributions (Jones, Rock et al.)
 Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Everyone is a naïve
psychologist
 Internal
(dispositional) attributions
 personality
characteristics
 beliefs
 External
(situational) attributions
 situational
 Example:
 Internal:
pressure/influence
Student turns in papers late
Everyone is a naïve
psychologist
 Internal
(dispositional) attributions
 personality
characteristics
 beliefs
 External
(situational) attributions
 situational
 Example:
pressure/influence
Student turns in papers late
 Internal:lazy,
partying all the time
Everyone is a naïve
psychologist
 Internal
(dispositional) attributions
 personality
characteristics
 beliefs
 External
(situational) attributions
 situational
 Example:
pressure/influence
Student turns in papers late
 Internal:lazy,
 External:
partying all the time
Everyone is a naïve
psychologist

Internal (dispositional) attributions



External (situational) attributions


personality characteristics
beliefs
situational pressure/influence
Example: Student turns in papers late


Internal:lazy, partying all the time
External:family problems, working, girlfriend
Social Cognition/Attribution
Theory

Everyone is a naïve psychologist (Heider)


Internal/External attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error (Ross)
 Actor/Observer Difference (Jones & Nisbett)
 Effects of Attributions (Jones, Rock et al.)
 Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Fundamental Attribution Error
 Lee
Ross: Internal attributions more
likely
Social Cognition/Attribution
Theory

Everyone is a naïve psychologist (Heider)


Internal/External attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error (Ross)
 Actor/Observer Difference (Jones & Nisbett)
 Effects of Attributions (Jones, Rock et al.)
 Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Actor/Observer Difference
Steve
Bob
(Actor)
Joe
(Observer)
Actor/Observer Difference
Steve
Bob
(Actor)
Bob hits Steve. Why?
Joe
(Observer)
Actor/Observer Difference
 OBSERVER-->Internal
attribution
 ACTOR-->External attribution
 What is salient in the perceptual field?
 For OBSERVER: The actor
 For ACTOR: Everything but the actor
(i.e., the situation)
Social Cognition/Attribution
Theory

Everyone is a naïve psychologist (Heider)


Internal/External attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error (Ross)
 Actor/Observer Difference (Jones & Nisbett)
 Effects of Attributions (Jones, Rock et al.)
 Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Effects of Attributions

Jones, Rock et al. (1968)


I.V. Pattern of correct answers




Subject is teacher; confederate is learner
1. Does well initially, finishes poorly (15 right)
2. Does poorly initially, finishes well (15 right)
3. Randomly gets correct and incorrect (15 right)
D.V. Intelligence ratings of learner
Effects of Attributions

Jones, Rock et al (1968)


I.V. Pattern of correct answers




Subject is teacher; confederate is learner
1. Does well initially, finishes poorly HIGHEST
2. Does poorly initially, finishes well LOWEST
3. Randomly gets correct and incorrect MIDDLE
D.V. Intelligence ratings of learner
 Result: Primacy effect
Our initial explanations about
the world can affect:
 Our
perception of others’ behavior (as
we have seen)
 Also:
 Our perception of new information
 Our perception of chance events
Initial attributions are
persistent

BEHAVIOR (Jones, Rock et al.)
 ATTITUDES (Lord, Ross, & Lepper)

Students’ attitudes on death penalty determined


Shown two “new” studies on death penalty



Favored or Opposed
Deterred crime or Didn’t
New opinions more extreme in initial direction
CHANCE EVENTS (Langer & Roth)


Flipped coin/successful in first 10 flips or not
Early success group: Higher prediction of
accuracy in next 100 flips
Why are these biases
important?

We may be totally
wrong (false beliefs)


These beliefs persist,
resist disconfirmation


For example:
Fundamental Attribution
Error
For example: Jones,
Rock et al.
Our incorrect beliefs
may create a new
reality

For example: Selffulfilling Prophecy
Social Cognition/Attribution
Theory

Everyone is a naïve psychologist (Heider)


Internal/External attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error (Ross)
 Actor/Observer Difference (Jones & Nisbett)
 Effects of Attributions (Jones, Rock et al.)
 Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Components of Self-fulfilling
Prophecy
 False
belief (Expectation)
 Actions, based on that belief
 New reality created
Palmer and Hollin (2000)
 Palmer
and Hollin (2000) found that
self-reported delinquency in young
offenders was associated not only with
lower levels of moral reasoning but also
with increased tendencies to inaccurate
attributions of hostility, especially in
ambiguous situations where it may be
difficult to accurately ascertain
intentions.
Dodge (1986)

Dodge (1986) has
argued that much
violence comes from
Hostile Attributional
Bias. Ambiguous
actions, like accidentally
standing on a person's
foot, are interpreted as
threatening and must
be countered with
action.
Personal Control
Internal Locus of Control
You pretty much control your own destiny
External Locus of Control
Luck, fate and/or powerful others control your destiny
Methods of Study
• Correlate feelings of control with behavior
• Experiment by raising/lowering people’s sense of
control and noting effects
Locus of Control

A number of studies have shown that
offenders tend to external control, that is
they explain their behaviour as being
controlled by influences beyond their
personal control (Beck and Ollendick 1976;
Kumchy and Sayer 1980).
 other studies have failed to show any
difference in locus of control between
offender and non-offender samples (Drasgow
et al. 1974; Groh and Goldenberg 1976);
 Lefcourt and Ladwig (1965) found offenders
to be more internally controlled than nonoffenders.
Locus of Control

The varied findings are probably due to two
unfounded assumptions: that locus of control
is a unitary concept, and that offenders form a
homogeneous population.
 a number of studies have shown that there
are several dimensions to locus of control,
such as belief in control over one's immediate
environment as opposed to belief in control
over political events (Mirels 1970).
Locus of Control
 locus
of control within an offender
population may be a function of race
(Griffith et al. 1981); type of offence, for
example, violent offenders tend to
external control (Hollin and Wheeler
1982); or time spent in prison (Kiessel
1966).
Impulsivity
 Failure
in self-control
 Unable to delay reward
 a failure to learn to stop and think;
 a failure to learn effective thinking';
 a failure to generate alternative
responses;
 a reflection of hopelessness.
Impulsivity
 Studies
designed to find a link between
impulsivity and crime give mixed results
 The difference between studies may be
due to
differing definitions and measures of
impulsivity,
 and the heterogeneity of the offender
population.

Impulsivity
 Uncontrolled
episodes of anger may
result from impulsivity or a tendency to
follow impulses instinctively and without
thought for the consequences.
 It has been suggested that this is a
common characteristic of most
offending behaviour, i.e. the satisfaction
of immediate needs.
Impulsivity

Impulsivity is
strongly associated
with psychopathy
and anti-social
personality
(Blackburn, 1993)
 can be measured
using the Minnesota
Multi-phasic
Inventory (MMPI)
Cognitive-Social Learning

Learned Helplessness
•
•
Seligman (1975)
Learned helplessness
•
•
the expectancy that one cannot escape aversive events
& the motivational & learning deficits that result from the
belief.
Human depression
•
Explanatory style
•
•
•
pessimistic explanatory style
• causes of misfortune internal rather than external
• stable & global
positive illusions
Optimism
cognitive scripts
(Huesmann, 1988).

A script is the details of how people should
behave in a certain situation and what will
happen if they behave that way.
 These are learnt from the environment in
direct experience and from watching others,
and from the media.
 But each script is unique to an individual, yet
resistant to change.
cognitive scripts
(Huesmann, 1988).
 They
become more resistant with use
and rehearsal over time. For example, if
insulted, a man with an ‘aggressive
script' will respond violently. He will
justify this behaviour by seeing the
insult as aggression, and aggression
must be faced by aggression.
cognitive scripts
(Huesmann, 1988).
 During
high levels of physiological
arousal, people resort to largely
unthinking behaviour, and thus wellrehearsed scripts' take over.
 So to teach non-aggressive scripts' will
reduce violence in situations of high
arousal (Zillmann (1988))
McGuire (1969) – Matrix of
communication
The source – effective from another socially
powerful offender
 The message – agreeable information
presented first. Immunisation against
persuasion – weak arguments against crime
easily countered – e.g. “Yes, you could be
caught, but the odds in your favour are 20 to
1, and only mugs get caught”.

McGuire (1969) – Matrix of
communication
channel – face to face, in a
pleasant context
 The receiver – recent failure – uses
cognitive rehearsal – e.g. “sleep on it”
 The destination.
 The
Incentives

Primary food, drink, sex
 Sensory boredom, seeking new experiences
important at the beginning of a career and for
person crimes
 Monetary important for late in career,
property crimes
 Social increase in social contacts
 Status/power built up from a series of
successful crimes
 Self-evaluative professional pride.
The target
 propinquity
(the targets being close to
where the criminal lives)
 payoff
 vulnerability ability to defend
 access to law enforcement policing,
unlikely to be reported
The risk involved
 detection
 punishment
 estimation
law-abiders
of risk over-estimated by
Skills and resources
 skilled
in physical attack, cracking safes
Opportunity to obtain same
objective by legal means
 relevant
to acquisition stage,
 those at performance stage combine
legitimate and criminal activities
Criminogenic factors

Alcohol/drugs, possession of firearms,
factors that increased the likelihood of a
criminal act. Override rational thinking
 Drugs, need to steal to pay for drugs.
 Alcohol, this inhibits behaviour. More
confident but less capable. Higher crime but
also higher chances of being caught. Also
increases helplessness in potential victims.
Cohen et al (1956), bus drivers more
optimistic about driving buses through small
gap but were less successful.
Cognitive consequences
and distortions.
 It
is central to much of social
psychology that people try to maintain
cognitive consistency between their
attitudes and their actions, and that they
experience a subjective sense of
discomfort when there is inconsistency.
It is easier to resolve this by changing
one’s cognitions than one’s behaviour
(Berkowitz 1969).
Moral justification.

This operates on the nature of the behaviour
itself. “What is culpable can be made
honourable through cognitive restructuring...
reprehensible conduct is made personally
and socially acceptable by portraying it in the
service of moral ends” (Bandura 1986, p.
376). As an example, Bandura points to
military training: people who have been
taught to deplore killing as immoral can be
transformed rapidly into skilled combatants.
In the criminological context moral
justification is likely to be associated with
political crimes.
Attribution of blame.

Offenders seek to exonerate themselves by
attributing the blame for their actions to the
victim.
 The most obvious example is that of rape —
a claim that in the past was frequently
accepted by the courts.
 It will be found also in other person crimes
and to some extent in property crimes.
The end