Affect and Cognition in Criminal Decision Making

Jean-Louis van Gelder, Henk Elffers, Danielle Reynald, Daniel Nagin, Jean-Louis van Gelder, Henk Elffers, Danielle Reynald, Daniel Nagin, Jean-Louis van Gelder, Henk Elffers, Danielle Reynald, Daniel S Nagin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138933644
• eBook ISBN: 9781135123093
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Research and theorizing on criminal decision making has not kept pace with recent developments in other fields of human decision making. Whereas criminal decision making theory is still largely dominated by cognitive approaches such as rational choice-based models, psychologists, behavioral economists and neuroscientists have found affect (i.e., emotions, moods) and visceral factors such as sexual arousal and drug craving, to play a fundamental role in human decision processes.

This book examines alternative approaches to incorporating affect into criminal decision making and testing its influence on such decisions. In so doing it generalizes extant cognitive theories of criminal decision making by incorporating affect into the decision process. In two conceptual and ten empirical chapters it is carefully argued how affect influences criminal decisions alongside rational and cognitive considerations. The empirical studies use a wide variety of methods ranging from interviews and observations to experimental approaches and questionnaires, and treat crimes as diverse as street robbery, pilfering, and sex offences. It will be of interest to criminologists, social psychologists, judgment and decision making researchers, behavioral economists and sociologists alike.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Crime science series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• Contributors' biographies
• Preface
• 1 Affect and cognition in criminal decision making: Between rational choices and lapses of self-control
• 2 Affect and the reasoning criminal: Past and future
• 3 Affect and the dynamic foreground of predatory street crime: Desperation, anger and fear
• 4 Posterior gains and immediate pains: Offender emotions before, during and after robberies
• 5 The role of sexual arousal and perceived consequences in men's and women's decisions to engage in sexually coercive behaviours
• 6 Sexual arousal and the ability to access sexually aggressive consequences from memory
• 7 Emotional arousal and child sex offending: A situational perspective
• 8 ‘I would have been sorry’: Anticipated regret and the role of expected emotions in the decision to offend
• 9 Anticipated emotions and immediate affect in criminal decision making: From shame to anger
• 10 Emotional justifications for unethical behaviour
• 11 A neuropsychological test of criminal decision making: Regional prefrontal influences in a dual process model
• 12 Traits and states of self-conscious emotions in criminal decision making
• Index