NCJ Number
186829
Journal
Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Dated: 2000 Pages: 170-184
Date Published
2000
Length
15 pages
Annotation
The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) is a measure of the criminal cognitions and thinking styles that maintain offending; this study examined results from the PICTS in relation to general measures of individual differences in order to link the PICTS to the broader literature on the characteristics of offenders.
Abstract
The PICTS scale comprises eight a priori thinking styles and two validation scales, the validation scales having been found to be unreliable. Owing to the large amount of apparently shared variance in the original validation study, this data matrix needs re-analysis. The original PICTS data-matrix was reanalyzed by using a more parsimonious method of analysis. The PICTS was also administered to 54 detained, mentally disordered offenders along with the NEO-Five Factor Inventory, the Sensation-Seeking Scale (SSS), the Attention Deficit Scales for Adults (ADSA), and the Standard Progressive Matrices, as a measure of general intelligence. Principal components analysis suggested that the PICTS comprised two factors: a lack of thoughtfulness (i.e., lack of attention to one's experience), and willful hostility, with the first factor being most well-defined. Intelligence was not associated with any factor of criminal-thinking style. High scores on the ADSA and Disinhibition and Boredom Susceptibility subscales of the SSS were associated with much greater endorsement of criminal sentiments; high neuroticism, low extroversion, and low agreeableness were slightly lower correlates. The issues involved in criminogenic cognitions need clarification and must be linked to the broader literature on cognitive distortions and personality. Interventions targeted at dismantling impulsive destructive behavior, whether it be thoughtlessness or willful hostility, may be affected by increasing thinking skills, so as to change the cognitions that maintain criminal behavior. 4 tables, 1 figure, and 45 references