Thesis-2008-Chen.pdf (11.28 MB)
Cognitive beliefs, moral development, and social knowledge in differentiating offender type: an attempt to integrate different models
thesis
posted on 2015-01-08, 09:51 authored by Chien An ChenThis dissertation originated out of a research interest in the role of
moral-reasoning development in different types of crime. However,
as this interest developed, it became apparent that the evidence that
moral-reasoning development is differentially involved in different
types of crime was a) somewhat weak and b) did not apply to all types
of crime. In addition, as part of the developmental work for this
dissertation, it was decided to re-analyze a previous Taiwanese study
by the author. This reanalysis substantially supported what the
previous research literature had indicated in terms of the, at best,
modest role of moral-reasoning development in different types of
crime. Furthermore, it was found that when the data were analysed
ignoring the conventional moral norms that previous research had
employed, there was evidence that question content had a role in
differentiating different types of crime. This is at variance with
structural approaches to moral-reasoning development. Taken
together, these findings steered the development of this dissertation
in the direction of social cognitive theories of deviant behaviour for
which the research evidence is fairly compelling. Consequently, the
dissertation moved from structural models of moral reasoning
development to socio-cognitive explanations of why some offenders
demonstrate a clear pattern of specialization in particular types of
crime.
This research aimed to assess different social cognitions about
offending and moral reasoning ability and used them to predict
characteristic types of offending. The participants were four hundreds
and thirty two male (adult=302, juvenile= 130) prisoners
incarcerated in seven correctional facilities in Taiwan. Based on the
offenders' self-reported crime histories, crime specialism indexes
(CSI) were calculated to represent offenders' crime propensities in
drug abuse, theft, sexual and violent offending for each of
respondents. Twenty-three of these respondents were questioned
using semi-structural interviews. The qualitative aspect of the
research was informed by interpretative phenomenological analysis
(IPA). In addition to moral reasoning competence measured by
Gibbs's SRM-SF, five additional social cognitions were investigated
including 1) normative beliefs, 2) crime cognitive beliefs, 3) moral
domain placement, 4) crime episode judgments, and 5)
criminal-identity.
It was hypothesized that different cognitive representations predict
decisions about types of offences committed. Research questions
were, 1) What are the relationships between moral reasoning ability
in overall, individual moral value, age, crime episode judgments, and
CSIs? a) Juvenile offenders operated at immature moral reasoning
level, while adults predominantly exhibited at mature stages. b) No
significant correlations emerged between sociomoral reflection moral
score (SRMS) and CS Is, except a positive relationship found with the
juvenile sexual CS!. c) Comparatively arrested development was
found in both age offenders' property & law and legal/justice than the
rest of three moral values. d) Except one in the juvenile drug taking
(SRMS), and two in life and legal justice, as well as one significant
correlations showed in the adult legal justice in sexual offending
context, there was no relationship found between the trend of
responses towards crime episode questions and moral reasoning
ability. 2) What are the relationships between offenders' crime
perceptions, evaluations and CS Is? a) Only drug CSI correlated
positively with the criminal identity, while negative relationships were
found with theft and sexual CSIs. b) A self approval tendency in
normative beliefs was found in all but the juvenile sexual CSIs. c) A
self endorsement tendency was observed in cognitive beliefs scale in
the adult group. d) Findings indicated that there were two differences
in the adult drug and theft CSIs, with those offenders thinking drug
taking and stealing behaviour as personal discretions being higher in
these two acts CSIs than those regarded these two crimes as moral
domains, respectively. 3) Is it possible to predict CSIs from
sociocognitive factors considered? Multiple-regressions indicated that
content-oriented cognitive appraisals predicted types of criminal
behaviour, while structural variables did not, with two exceptions. In
the case of adult violence CSI two moral reasoning level indicators
accounted for some additional variance. In the case of juvenile
violence, SRMS accounted for some additional variance. But in this
latter case, a higher level of moral reasoning was associated with
greater specialisation in violence. In the qualitative research
questions, research question 4) What are the relationships between
offenders' crime perceptions, evaluations and offending behaviour?
Interviewees tended to approve their own behaviour more,
particularly when compared with other crime patterns. Most of
interviewees showed appreciations of Gibbs's mature moral reasoning
forms. This seems to contradict with what they had done to others.
Despite the meanings behind laws were recognised they largely based
their justifications on heteronymous moral thinking. 5) How do
offenders' explain the above conflicts, if any? Drug abusers tended to
see there was more consistent than conflict, For example, it is a
personal prerogative issue. Although theft and violent offenders
admitted conflicts present, the former group tended to justify with
reasons, such as if they do not harm other physically, stealing is not
that bad behaviour, while the latter indicated they only use violence
under threatening or legitimate circumstances. Although relatively
little information was elicited from sexual offender interviewees on
this issue, conflicts were expressed by them.
In summary, a self-serving yet other-blaming tendency was observed
in cognitive evaluations both in qualitative and qualitative data. The
more intensive an offender's involvement in a specific type of crime
the more likely were they to evaluate this type of crime more
positively, legitimately and less moral concerns involved then any of
the other crime types. Moral reasoning may simply accommodate to
offenders' progressively firm crime social cognitions. Based on the
research findings, a crime cognitive whirlpool model was proposed.
This is an idea that offenders are being pulled down (socio-cognitively
strapped) to crimes. The model illustrates how a differential
relationship between content and structural social knowledge
develops for specific crime commitment. Future research should
explore in greater depth the specificity and versatility of social
cognitive reasoning in this context. Also, the factors which intervene
between beliefs about what is good and good behaviour need to be
understood better.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies
Publisher
© Chien An ChenPublisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2008EThOS Persistent ID
uk.bl.ethos.507351Language
- en