NCJ Number
208604
Journal
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 49 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2005 Pages: 5-24
Date Published
February 2005
Length
20 pages
Annotation
An idiographic procedure that assesses the belief systems of criminal offenders is described, tested, and clarified.
Abstract
There are two general models of personality assessment used by clinicians in their evaluations: idiographic assessment and nomethetic assessment. The idiographic perspective on personality has received far less research attention than the nomethetic perspective, primarily because nomothetic scales are more amenable to reliability and validity testing. The current article describes the testing of the Cognitive Map of Major Belief Systems (CMMBS), an idiographic measure of a person’s five belief systems: self-view, world-view, present-view, past-view, and future-view. Nineteen inmates enrolled in 1 of 3 drug-counseling groups participated in the validity and reliability testing of the CMMBS by completing the measure on 2 separate occasions, 2 weeks apart. Following the second CMMBS testing, test-retest reliability coefficients were calculated. Results revealed modest to moderate test-retest reliability. Furthermore, the therapist of all 3 drug-counseling groups was able to “blindly” match the 19 CMMBS records to the inmates who produced them. A case study of one of the participants is offered to illustrate how the CMMBS is used with offenders and how the five belief systems measured by the CMMBS interact with other stimuli to create crime-supporting lifestyles. Future research should evaluate the CMMBS in different settings with larger sample sizes. Tables, figures, appendixes, references