Moral Reasoning and Executive Functioning, Personality in Violent and Non-violent Offenders PDF

Preview

Summary

Presentation 17...

Description

What is Moral Reasoning? ● Moral reasoning is the psychological construct by which one infers process by which individuals adopt, and internalize the standards of “right” and “wrong” in their societies Kolberg’s Levels of Moral Reasoning Level of Moral Development

Stage of Reasoning

Approximate Ages

Preconventional “do’s and don’ts”

Stage 1: Right is obedience to power and avoidance of punishment Stage 2: Right is taking responsibility and leaving others to be responsible for themselves

< 11

Conventional

Stage 3: Right is being considerate: “uphold the values of other adolescents and adults’ rules of society” Stage 4: Right is being good with the values and norms of family and society at large

Adolescence and adulthood

Postconventional

Stage 5: Right is finding inner “universal rights” balance between self-rights and societal rules--a social contract Stage 6: Right is based on a higher order of applying principles to all human-kind; being non-judgemental and respecting all human life

After 20

Criticism of Kohlberg’s Theory ● Carol Gilligan’s theory of moral reasoning: ○ Stage 1 (Orientation toward individual survival) ■ Initial concentration is on what is practical and best for self. A gradual transition from selfishness to responsibility, which includes thinking about what would be best for others. ● Example: ○ A first-grader may insist on playing only games of her own choosing when playing with a friend ○ Stage 2 (Goodness as self-sacrifice) ■ The initial view that a woman must sacrifice her own wishes to what other people want. A gradual transition from “goodness” to “truth” which takes into account the needs of both self and others.

●

Example: ○ Now older, the same girl may believe that to be a good friend, she must play the games her friend chooses, even if she herself doesn’t like them ○ Step 3 (Morality of nonviolence) ■ Moral equivalence is established between self and others. Hurting anyone--including one’s self--is seen as immoral. A most sophisticated form of reasoning, according to Gilligan. ● Example: ○ The same girl may realize that both friends must enjoy their time together and look for activities that both and her friend can enjoy How do you Measure Moral Reasoning? ● Kohlberg’s interview and scoring system: the most known to assess an individual’s moral reasoning/behaviour ● James Rest: Defining issues test, the most used tool to assess one’s moral reasoning is an objective and group-administered questionnaire ● Carol Gilligan: deals with real-life instead of hypothetical, moral conflicts, choices, and dilemmas What is Executive Functioning? ● Executive function is a set of mental skills that help you get things done. ○ Examples: ■ Planning ■ Managing time ■ Paying attention ■ Understanding people’s point of view ■ Regulating emotions ■ Starting tasks and staying focused on them until it’s done ● The most widely accepted measure of executive function is the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) ○ It is used to measure higher-level cognitive processes like attention, perseverance, abstract thinking, cognitive function, and set-shifting ○ It is particularly used in clinical fields to measure preservative behaviours that refer to an individual’s insistence on wrong behaviour ● Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) ○ Used to measure decision-making abilities ● Executive function in criminal behaviour ○ According to a study by J.Meijers, J. Harte, G. Meyen, & P. Cuuipers: violent offenders show worse response inhibition compared to non-violent offenders, suggesting a more pronounced prefrontal deficit in violent offenders than in nonviolent offenders ○ Another study shows that recurrent criminals suffer from executive dysfunction What is Personality? ● Personality is a set of traits that predicts a person’s behaviour

●

The 5 personality traits are (the big 5): ○ Openness ○ Conscientiousness ○ Extraversion ○ Agreeableness ○ Neuroticism Violent Offenders & Non-Violent Offenders ● Violent offenders: are people who commit crimes against persons and included homicide, attempted murder, sexual assault, and abduction ● Nonviolent offenders: are people identified as those involved in unlawful acts committed with the intent of gaining property but did not involve the threat or use of violence (theft, breaking and entering, fraud, and possession of stolen goods) Earlier Research ● Palmer and Hollin (1998): reported that offenders have a tendency to reason at stage 2 which suggests that morality is perceived in terms of power and individualized gains ● Palmer (2003): found that offender populations were inept at moral reasoning ● Casebeer and Churchland (2003): suggest that the ventral prefrontal cortex plays a critical role in cuing morally appropriate behaviour in adulthood and in acquiring moral knowledge in childhood Research Article: Hypothesis & Methods ● Hypothesis: violent and non-violent offenders could be discriminated from each other and non-offenders on the basis of moral reasoning, executive functioning and personality measure ● Method: 59 participants were used (all men); 39 participants were from the district jail ○ 20 violent offenders ○ 19 nonviolent offenders ● 20 participants were voluntarily recruited from Laurentian University ● Tests administered: ○ The Porteus maze: used to assess executive functioning ■ A nonverbal test ■ Examines an individual’s planning ability, patience and mental alertness ■ Q-score is the sum of weighted scores used to evaluate the subject’s performance ■ Instructions include: ● Drawing one’s way through the maze without lifting one’s pencil, hitting the wall or going into any blocked alley ○ The defining issues tests: this test is used to evaluate principled moral reasoning ■ Measures how people reason morally about social problems ■ Instructions: ● Participants are asked to make specific decisions concerning ethical dilemmas ● Participants are asked to respond to the short form of three stories ● Scores obtained from this test are characterizations of the conceptual tool used by a person to make a moral judgment

●

Raw scores are then tabulated and converted percentages or p scores ● Scores range from 0 to 95 ○ The test of Nonverbal intelligence-3 is used to assess the participant’s cognition to ensure awareness, general intelligence, and abstract reasoning abilities ■ Utilizes a language free administrative and response format ■ Form b was used in this study ■ Consists of 45 items ■ The items include different problem-solving tasks, increasing in complexity and difficulty ■ There are no words, numbers or familiar pictures or symbols in this test items ■ Takes about 20 minutes ● Instructions ○ Participants examine figures, identify the relationships among the figures, and then select the correct response ● Results ○ Test of nonverbal intelligence: no significant difference was found ○ Porteus maze: no significant difference ○ MMPI: A statistically significant differences between groups for ■ Depression ■ Psychopathic deviate ■ Social introversion ○ No significant differences were found in the remaining MMPI scales ○ The defining issues test: showed a significant difference between the groups for: ■ Stage 2 (nonviolence offenders scored significantly higher than violent offenders) ■ Stage 5a (nonoffenders scored significantly higher on the latter stages of moral development on the defining issues test than nonviolent offenders) ■ Antiestablishment stage (violent offenders scored significantly higher on this stage than nonoffenders) ○ Three separate stepwise multiple discriminant functions were computed ○ To examine the combination of variables that produced maximal differentiation between groups ○ The first discriminant analysis: which classified 88% of all cases according to the function on the basis of violent offenders and nonviolent offenders ○ The second discriminant analysis: compared nonoffenders and violent offenders ○ The third discriminant analysis: compared nonoffenders and nonviolent offenders Conclusion ● Nonviolent and violent offenders could be differentiated on the basis of moral reasoning ● Violent offenders possess more mature moral reasoning than nonviolent offenders ● Deficits in prefrontal function are shown in the current study for both offender groups which supports the finding that nonviolent offenders possess less mature moral reasoning

●

●

The finding that frontal impairment that has been associate with violence, aggression and antisocial personality disorder doesn’t lead to the finding that violent offenders display mature moral reasoning According to the psychasthenia scale implies that nonviolent offenders may possess some sense of guilt or remorse for their actions while violent offenders do not...