published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Thirty-two juvenile delinquent males were tested for Kinesthetic Figural Aftereffects using the method developed by Petrie in an effort to determine if self-mutilation is more prevalent among kinesthetic reducers than augmenters. The results were in the predicted direction, but failed to reach significance. Verbal measures administered proved unrelated to both KFAE scores and self-mutilation category.

Cognitive-developmental theory claims that moral reasoning ordinarily progresses through distinct stages, and that such development can be stimulated by discussion with others, especially discussions involving exposure to higher-stage reasoning. The concern of this study was the social/contextual factors that interact with cognitive processes involved in the development of moral reasoning. Two types of such factors were studied: namely, sociometric status and intensity of moral education program. The first of these could be studied because the participants were residents of a facility for young offenders (a total institution), characterized by an obvious and rigid hierarchical peer status system within the culture. The second factor could be studied because the participants were drawn from three residential units within the larger center, which varied significantly in terms of their program activities (specifically, unit meetings), and hence their moral climates. A total of 101 young offenders served as participants. They were assessed for moral reasoning, their perceptions of moral and institutional climate, and also through behavioral ratings - all at the pretest and at the 1-month posttest. The three levels of program were reflected in the institutional and moral climate measures. As well, better climates were associated with improvements in behavior and lesser climates with reductions in prosocial behavior. It was concluded that moral climate represents a valid measure of the factors which predict behavior within and following release from institutional settings. In order to study the effects of peer status, 40 participants served as target subjects who engaged in moral dilemma discussions with one other subject, each day for 3 consecutive days. According to cognitive-developmental theory, a dyadic intervention such as the one used here would be expected to stimulate the moral reasoning competence of the participant who is lower in that ability. However, the dyads were formed in such a way that some of the high stage participants (who would be expected to have an influence on their partner) were of significantly lower peer status. It was found that both exposure to higher-stage reasoning and higher peer status were necessary but not sufficient elements within this developmental process, consistent with the Piagetian notions regarding peer interaction and disequilibration.

This study was designed to explore possible relations between moral maturity and moral action by evaluating groups of delinquent and non-delinquent youth, and examining their relative position on multiple measures of moral maturity and criminality. Subjects were 60 male adjudicated juvenile offenders between the ages of 14 and 17, and 20 non-delinquent controls. All youth participated in a series of structured interviews used as a way of assessing their abilities on Kohlberg's moral reasoning, Turiel's social convention understanding, and Selman's social perspective taking measures, and were administered Hogan's socialization, empathy, and autonomy scales. The delinquent youth were assigned immorality ratings and further classified according to legal categories. Ratings for Hare's Psychopathy Checklist were obtained from primary therapists for the delinquents and from school counsellors for the non-delinquent comparison group. The results revealed that as a group, delinquent subjects showed substantial developmental delays in their performances on measures of moral reasoning, social convention understanding, interpersonal awareness and indices of socialization and autonomy. Hogan's empathy measure also showed a trend in the same direction. The majority of the delinquent youth were found to score at a preconventional-concrete reasoning level and showed a general lack of social-moral character. Tests of communality among the six moral maturity measures produced distinct and internally consistent cognitive reasoning (i.e., moral reasoning, interpersonal awareness, and social convention understanding) and moral character (i.e., socialization, empathy, and autonomy) clusters which lend support to the claims of Brown, Harre, and Hogan regarding the multidimensionality of moral development. There was an expected inverse relationship between immorality and moral maturity for the low and moderate seriousness groups, and an inconsistent pattern for the high group. This later finding was interpreted as an artifact of the fact that those delinquents whose criminal acts were judged most immoral were particularly guilty of various sexual offenses. The psychometric properties of the Psychopathy Checklist confirm its usefulness with adolescent populations. Three internally consistent factor scales emerged (i.e., motivational deficit, lack of ego strength, and behavioral deviation). While psychopathy was found to significantly correlate with immorality ratings, an unexpected positive relationship was also found between psychopathy and moral reasoning for the sex offender group. Taken together, all of these results were interpreted in terms of Heider's theory of the psychology of action, which views behavior, in this case moral behavior, as a combination of "can" (i.e., moral reasoning competency) and "try" (i.e., moral character). / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Cognitive-developmental theory claims that moral reasoning ordinarily progresses through distinct stages, and that such development can be stimulated by discussion with others, especially discussions involving exposure to higher-stage reasoning. The concern of this study was the social/contextual factors that interact with cognitive processes involved in the development of moral reasoning. Two types of such factors were studied: namely, sociometric status and intensity of moral education program. The first of these could be studied because the participants were residents of a facility for young offenders (a total institution), characterized by an obvious and rigid hierarchical peer status system within the culture. The second factor could be studied because the participants were drawn from three residential units within the larger center, which varied significantly in terms of their program activities (specifically, unit meetings), and hence their moral climates. A total of 101 young offenders served as participants. They were assessed for moral reasoning, their perceptions of moral and institutional climate, and also through behavioral ratings - all at the pretest and at the 1-month posttest. The three levels of program were reflected in the institutional and moral climate measures. As well, better climates were associated with improvements in behavior and lesser climates with reductions in prosocial behavior. It was concluded that moral climate represents a valid measure of the factors which predict behavior within and following release from institutional settings. In order to study the effects of peer status, 40 participants served as target subjects who engaged in moral dilemma discussions with one other subject, each day for 3 consecutive days. According to cognitive-developmental theory, a dyadic intervention such as the one used here would be expected to stimulate the moral reasoning competence of the participant who is lower in that ability. However, the dyads were formed in such a way that some of the high stage participants (who would be expected to have an influence on their partner) were of significantly lower peer status. It was found that both exposure to higher-stage reasoning and higher peer status were necessary but not sufficient elements within this developmental process, consistent with the Piagetian notions regarding peer interaction and disequilibration. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The transtheoretical model has a substantial history of measuring the change process. Hemphill and Howell validated the Stages of Change Scale (SOCS) on adolescent offenders. The current study expands their research by developing an additional component of the TTM, the Decisional Balance Scale for Adolescent Offenders (DBS-AO). This measure assesses movement through the stages of change and provides insight into mechanisms through which adolescent offenders attempt to change their criminal behaviors. Two hundred thirty-nine adolescent offenders at the Gainesville State School completed the SOCS, DBS-AO, Paulhus Deception Scales (PDS), and the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD). The study found the DBS-AO is psychometrically sound, demonstrates excellent reliability and has an underlying three-factor solution: Cons, Pros-Self, and Pros-Others. Offenders in the early stages of change scored significantly higher on the Cons scale. Offenders actively changing their behavior scored significantly higher on the Pro-Self and Pros-Other scales.

Predictors of institutional adjustment for juvenile offenders were examined using a sample of 120 males in a detention facility. While demographic information failed to differentiate between well and poorly adjusted juveniles, psychological measures appeared to be more effective. Several MMPI-A clinical scales were useful predictors with the overall elevation in clinical scales being one of the strongest predictors. In addition, the Psychopathy Checklist - Clinical Version (PCL-CV) was a strong predictor of adjustment. Major ethnic differences occurred in the prediction of adjustment, with the MMPI-A and PCL-CV scales predicting infraction rates for the African American group but not Anglo American or Hispanic American groups.

<p>Although deficits in object relations patterns have been identified in populations of violent offenders, few studies have examined the object relations of male juveniles incarcerated for violent crimes. The present study examined four dimensions of object relations, as measured by the Thematic Apperception Test and Westen's Social Cognitions and Object Relations Scale with a sample of eight male juvenile offenders incarcerated for violent crimes as De Novo and Eureka Youth Care Centres. These dimensions are complexity of object representations, affect tone of relationship paradigms, capacity for emotional investment in relationships and understanding of social causality.</p>

<p>Although deficits in object relations patterns have been identified in populations of violent offenders, few studies have examined the object relations of male juveniles incarcerated for violent crimes. The present study examined four dimensions of object relations, as measured by the Thematic Apperception Test and Westen's Social Cognitions and Object Relations Scale with a sample of eight male juvenile offenders incarcerated for violent crimes as De Novo and Eureka Youth Care Centres. These dimensions are complexity of object representations, affect tone of relationship paradigms, capacity for emotional investment in relationships and understanding of social causality.</p>

This thesis examined differences in reasoning concerning hypothetical versus real-life moral situations in order to better understand the moral development of delinquents in general, and psychopaths in particular. Participants ranged in age from 15 to 18 years and were divided into three subgroups: 14 psychopaths, 15 delinquents, and 15 normal youths (total N = 44). All subjects were individually interviewed and assessed on (a) Hare's (1985) psychopathy checklist, (b) two of Kohlberg's hypothetical moral dilemmas, and (c) a subject-generated real-life moral dilemma. Reasoning regarding these dilemmas was scored for both moral stage and moral orientation. It was found that the normal youths attained a higher level of moral reasoning than both the delinquents and psychopaths. Secondly, it was found that all groups scored lower on the real-life than the hypothetical dilemmas, indicating that hypothetical dilemmas may elicit a person's best level of reasoning, whereas real-life dilemmas may entail factors which lower the level of moral reasoning used in an actual situation of moral conflict. Third, non-incarcerated subjects were found to use more of the perfectionism and fairness orientations (Subtype B) than did the incarcerated. It was also found that psychopaths used more of the egoistic utilitarianism orientation than did non-psychopaths when discussing real-life dilemmas. That is, they focused more on issues related to themselves than did either the delinquents or the normals. Thus, this study reveals a pattern of deficiencies in the moral reasoning development of psychopaths and delinquents when compared to their normal counterparts. As well, hypothetical and real-life dilemmas were found to differ in the level of moral reasoning that they elicited. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate