Social Cognition and Crime

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Social Cognition and Crime

• Psychology and Crime

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Social Cognition of Crime

• Attribution theory
• Locus of Control
• Impulsivity
• Learned Helplessness
• Cognitive Scripts
• Communication model

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Social Cognition/Attribution Theory
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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

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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

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Everyone is a naïve psychologist

• Internal (dispositional) attributions
• personality characteristics
• beliefs
• External (situational) attributions
• situational pressure/influence
• Example Student turns in papers late
• Internal

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Everyone is a naïve psychologist

• Internal (dispositional) attributions
• personality characteristics
• beliefs
• External (situational) attributions
• situational pressure/influence
• Example Student turns in papers late
• Internallazy, partying all the time

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Everyone is a naïve psychologist

• Internal (dispositional) attributions
• personality characteristics
• beliefs
• External (situational) attributions
• situational pressure/influence
• Example Student turns in papers late
• Internallazy, partying all the time
• External

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Everyone is a naïve psychologist

• Internal (dispositional) attributions
• personality characteristics
• beliefs
• External (situational) attributions
• situational pressure/influence
• Example Student turns in papers late
• Internallazy, partying all the time
• Externalfamily problems, working, girlfriend

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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

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Fundamental Attribution Error

• Lee Ross Internal attributions more likely

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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

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Actor/Observer Difference
Bob (Actor)
Steve
Joe (Observer)
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Actor/Observer Difference
Bob (Actor)
Steve
Joe (Observer)
Bob hits Steve. Why?
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Actor/Observer Difference

• OBSERVER--gtInternal attribution
• ACTOR--gtExternal attribution
• What is salient in the perceptual field?
• For OBSERVER The actor
• For ACTOR Everything but the actor (i.e., the
  situation)

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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

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Effects of Attributions

• Jones, Rock et al. (1968)
• Subject is teacher confederate is learner
• I.V. Pattern of correct answers
• 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

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Effects of Attributions

• Jones, Rock et al (1968)
• Subject is teacher confederate is learner
• I.V. Pattern of correct answers
• 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

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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

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Initial attributions are persistent

• BEHAVIOR (Jones, Rock et al.)
• ATTITUDES (Lord, Ross, Lepper)
• Students attitudes on death penalty determined
• Favored or Opposed
• Shown two new studies on death penalty
• Deterred crime or Didnt
• 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

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Why are these biases important?

• We may be totally wrong (false beliefs)
• For example Fundamental Attribution Error
• These beliefs persist, resist disconfirmation
• For example Jones, Rock et al.
• Our incorrect beliefs may create a new reality
• For example Self-fulfilling Prophecy

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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

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Components of Self-fulfilling Prophecy

• False belief (Expectation)
• Actions, based on that belief
• New reality created

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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.

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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.

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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 peoples sense of
• control and noting effects

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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 non-offenders.

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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).

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Impulsivity

• Impulsivity is strongly associated with
  psychopathy and anti-social personality
  (Blackburn, 1993)
• can be measured using the Minnesota Multi-phasic
  Inventory (MMPI)

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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

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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.

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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.

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cognitive scripts (Huesmann, 1988).

• During high levels of physiological arousal,
  people resort to largely unthinking behaviour,
  and thus well-rehearsed scripts' take over.
• So to teach non-aggressive scripts' will reduce
  violence in situations of high arousal (Zillmann
  (1988))

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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.

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McGuire (1969) Matrix of communication

• The channel face to face, in a pleasant context
• The receiver recent failure uses cognitive
  rehearsal e.g. sleep on it
• The destination.

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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.

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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

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The risk involved

• detection
• punishment
• estimation of risk over-estimated by law-abiders

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Skills and resources

• skilled in physical attack, cracking safes

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Opportunity to obtain same objective by legal
means

• relevant to acquisition stage,
• those at performance stage combine legitimate and
  criminal activities

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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.

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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 ones
  cognitions than ones behaviour (Berkowitz 1969).

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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.

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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.

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The end