Law and You > Criminal Laws > Criminology > Cognitive Theory of Criminal Behaviour
Crime is present in the society because of the mentality of the people. Psychologists have long been interested in the minds of criminals. Psychological theories of crime tend to see offending behaviour from a psychological perspective, focusing on aspects such as a person’s personality, thinking patterns, and cognitive distortions. According to the psychological explanation of crime, crime is more of a result of thinking patterns and life experiences than biological reasons. Psychological theories of crime see offending behaviour as a result of theindividual’s mind and behaviours; specifically, psychological theories of crime focus on personality types (Eysenck), cognitive approaches (faulty thinking patterns, cognitive distortions, and moral reasoning), and psychodynamic (abnormal ego, superego and id) and learning approaches (conditioning and differential association theory). In this article we shall discuss Cognitive Theory of Criminal Behaviour.
There are basically five major psychological theories that are associated with criminal psychology which deals with the thoughts and behaviours of offenders and criminals. These are:
- Psychodynamic theory
- Cognitive theory
- Behavioural theory
- Personality theory and
- Theory of intelligence.
These theories explain dynamics underlying crime and criminal behaviours.
Cognitive Theory of Criminal Behaviour:
The next theory to explain criminal behaviour is the cognitive theory. When we read and learn, we engage in cognition, the process of learning and understanding by drawing on their senses, thoughts, memories, and experiences. Many factors influence how people understand and process this information, including physiology, language, environment, and even diet. Cognitive theories of criminal behaviour look for faults in cognitive processes, mental development, and/or a defective moral compass. Rather than focusing on behaviour as an expression of individual personality or development, cognitive and cognitive-behavioural theories look at the way thoughts and feelings influence human behaviour.
According to cognitive theory, criminal behaviour is explained in terms of the mental processes of the individual. The focus of this theory is to understand how criminals perceive the world around them, and how the individuals solve problems. Cognitive theory has two sub disciplines, viz., a) moral development, and b) information processing.
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development:
Kohlberg’s theory of moral development is a theory that focuses on how children develop morality and moral reasoning. Kohlberg’s theory suggests that moral development occurs in a series of six stages and that moral logic is primarily focused on seeking and maintaining justice. Moral development is the process by which people develop the distinction between right and wrong (morality) and engage in reasoning between the two (moral reasoning). The focus in moral development is to understand how individuals morally represent the world and how do they reason about that world. In information processing, the focus is to study how people acquire, retain, and retrieve information.
Kohlberg’s theory is broken down into three primary levels. At each level of moral development, there are two stages.
Level – I: Pre-conventional Morality (Age 0 to 9 years):
In pre conventional level which covers kindergarten to class 5,
- Stage 1 refers to obedience and punishment. Children will have to learn to behave according to acceptable norms as laid by parents, teachers and the school. Obedient behaviour in children at this stage is ensured through punishment. According to Kohlberg, people at this stage see rules as fixed and absolute. Obeying the rules is important because it is a way to avoid punishment.
- In stage 2, the main characteristics to be developed by children include individualism, instrumentalism and exchange. This stage focusses on the child developing the ‘right’ behaviour, inferring that the child behaves correctly and acts appropriately in his or her own best interests. In this stage, children account for individual points of view and judge actions based on how they serve individual needs. Reciprocity is possible at this point in moral development, but only if it serves one’s own interests.
Level – II: Conventional Level (Early adolescence to adulthood)
The Level II is the conventional level. This covers stages 3 and 4.
- Stage 3 looks after developing good interpersonal relationships. The individual is able to understand and recognise that he/ she is a member of the society and has certain roles to play and are concerned with the approval and disapproval of people in the society. There is an emphasis on conformity, being “nice,” and consideration of how choices influence relationships.
- Stage 4 is to learn maintaining social order. At this stage of moral development, people begin to consider society as a whole when making judgments. This stage focusses on the individuals accepting the importance of laws, rules and customs of the society. Such an understanding helps the individual to function properly in the society, obey and recognise the social pillars of the society. In other words, the child or the individual develops into a person who is reliable, who can distinguish between right and wrong, is decent, hardworking, helpful and compassionate towards others, engages in voluntary work and takes up worthy causes to work on for the benefit of the society etc. The person is law abiding and follows all norms. According to Kohlberg (1984), in this stage morality is driven by external force.
Level III: Post Conventional Level (Some adults; rare):
This level contains stages 5 and 6.
- Stage 5 is referred to as social contract and individual rights (decisions taken by majority opinion with scope for compromise). The ideas of a social contract and individual rights cause people in this stage to begin to account for the differing values, opinions, and beliefs of other people. Rules of law are important for maintaining a society, but members of the society should agree upon these standards.
- Stage 6 is known as principled conscience (principled justice and human autonomy). Kohlberg’s final level of moral reasoning is based on universal ethical principles and abstract reasoning. At this stage, people follow these internalized principles of justice, even if they conflict with laws and rules.
For explaining criminality and criminal behaviour, this theory states criminals are significantly lower in their moral judgment development. Thus one explanation for criminal behaviour based on this theory is that those who are low in moral judgement, are more prone to criminal behaviour as compared to those who are high in this characteristic.
Criticisms for Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development:
Kohlberg’s theory has been highly influential, but aspects of the theory have been critiqued for a number of reasons:
- Kohlberg’s theory is concerned with moral thinking, but there is a big difference between knowing what we ought to do versus our actual actions. Moral reasoning, therefore, may not lead to moral behaviour.
- Kohlberg’s theory of moral development overemphasizes the concept of justice when making moral choices. Factors such as compassion, caring, and other interpersonal feelings may play an important part in moral reasoning.
- Eastern, collectivist cultures may have different moral outlooks that Kohlberg’s theory does not take into account.
- Most of his subjects were children under the age of 16 who obviously had no experience with marriage.
- Kohlberg’s theory was gender-biased since all of the subjects in his sample were male.
Information Processing and Criminal Behaviour:
Under cognitive theory, information processing is an important aspect. Social information processing (SIP) theory is broadly concerned with the mental processes used by individuals to create a behavioural response. The theory suggests that all individuals go through six sequential processing steps, which are relatively independent of each other, during their processing of a social situation, to arrive at a decision. These steps include: attention to social cues, characteristics of intent, goal generation, accessing scripts of past behaviour from memory, decision making, and enacting the decision through behavioural responses. According to this theory, people use their thought processes step by step to make a decision based on the information that they received through their information processing system. For instance, as the individual experiences an event, he/ she gathers all the relevant information from the environment and stores them for retrieval at a later time. Then the person searches for the appropriate response and from amongst the responses, selects the most appropriate one for action.
Step 1: Attention to Social Cues:
The first step in social information processing theory is the encoding of cues in a situation. These cues are both internal and external, where internal cues are those the person brings with them into the situation, while external cues are taken from the immediate situation.
Step 2: Characteristics of Intent:
In this step he person interprets the current situational cues in light of information stored in their individual “database” of memories. The database contains earlier experiences that are stored in the form of associations, schemata, scripts, and social knowledge. During this second step, the motive/intent of others’ behaviours is interpreted. This interpretational process may result in changes or revisions to the individual’s database.
Step 3: Goal Generation:
The third step in social information processing theory is the clarification of goals in a situation. Individuals bring goals to a social situation, but they can revise or construct new goals in response to immediate social stimuli. Goals can be categorized as intrapersonal or interpersonal. Intrapersonal, or instrumental, goals are self-serving and promote individual gains. These intrapersonal goals tend to be more egocentric and antisocial, whereas, interpersonal goals pertain to “between person gains” that promote dealing with, and thinking about, others.
Step 4: Accessing Scripts of Past Behaviour from Memory:
In this step, individuals access plausible responses from memory, or construct new behaviours, in response to the immediate social situation.
Step 5: Decision Making:
During this step, the response decision, an individual evaluates the previous responses (which can be accessed from memory or newly constructed), and selects the one most positively evaluated to enact during the situation.
Step 6: Enacting the Decision through Behavioural Responses:
The sixth, and last, step is the enactment of such response through a given behaviour. Individuals initiate the behaviour that seems most appropriate to obtain their goal in the situation.
Those persons who use the information correctly and appropriately will avoid criminal or delinquent behaviours. Also those who make reasoned judgements when encounter emotional situations, would most likely avoid criminal or antisocial behaviours. One of the reasons for inappropriate reasoning is the faulty cognitive processes that is the individual is following what he / she had learned in childhood. Also such inappropriate reasoning may result from a very long period of exposure to violence and also can be the consequence of rejection and neglect experienced in childhood. These persons tend to become hypersensitive and often resort to violent behaviours, as a coping mechanism, in addition to becoming alcohol and substance dependent.
Thus, cognitive theories explain criminal behaviour as a defect in thought processes, mental development and moral thinking.