Abstract
The ability to cope with failure and subsequent feedback is crucial for prisoner rehabilitation. Impaired executive function in prisoners, high trait aggression and external locus of control can undermine the capacity to react to feedback in socially adaptive ways. To investigate the relationships between aggression, locus of control, and attribution in an experimental task involving feedback about failure and success. Two groups were compared: 1. Imprisoned men, 2. Community living men without a history of incarceration. Aggression, locus of control and reasoning ability were assessed by means of psychometric instruments. An experimental task building on cognitive ability and providing performance-related feedback was carried out. Attributions of failure and success were measured using an ad hoc rating scale. Prisoners reported higher levels of aggression and generalised externality, but poorer reasoning ability than the comparison group. Aggression was associated with external locus of control. In the experimental task, the community group showed higher success rates; higher scores on the task were correlated with less external attribution of own performance. Higher external locus of control and lower reasoning ability were independently associated with being a prisoner in a logistic regression model. Men in prison were characterised by greater social and fatalistic externality paired with lower reasoning ability than never incarcerated community men. In-prison rehabilitation strategies should pay early attention to improving reasoning ability and enabling men to recognise likely overuse of externally attributing their difficulties to fate, then helping them to become more realistic in their attributions and make use of realistic feedback.
Highlights
Deficits in executive cognitive function play a central role in self-regulation and are crucial for the understanding of criminal behaviour
In-prison rehabilitation strategies should pay early attention to improving reasoning ability and enabling men to recognise likely overuse of externally attributing their difficulties to fate, helping them to become more realistic in their attributions and make use of realistic feedback
In aggressive or violent individuals, impaired cognition and deficits in social cognition, such as poor planning ability, mental inflexibility or rigidity, low verbal intelligence and attentional deficits have been linked to impaired ability to cope with internal or external stressors
Summary
Deficits in executive cognitive function play a central role in self-regulation and are crucial for the understanding of criminal behaviour. In aggressive or violent individuals, impaired cognition and deficits in social cognition, such as poor planning ability, mental inflexibility or rigidity, low verbal intelligence and attentional deficits have been linked to impaired ability to cope with internal or external stressors. This may lead to excessively aggressive behaviour or violence (Elliott & Mirsky, 2002). Aim: To investigate the relationships between aggression, locus of control, and attribution in an experimental task involving feedback about failure and success. The community group showed higher success rates; higher scores on the task were correlated with less external attribution of own performance.
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