Changes in outcome expectancies and criminal thinking following a brief course of psychoeducation

The purpose of this investigation was to ascertain whether outcome expectancies and criminal thinking would change in offenders participating in a psychoeducational group and whether significant cross-lag (over time) correlations could be identified between outcome expectancies and criminal thinking. A sample of 121 US federal inmates completed the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) and a measure of outcome expectancies for crime (OEC) before and after participating in a 10-week psychoeducational class. As predicted, participants’ positive outcome expectancies for crime (OEC–POS) and scores on the PICTS Current Criminal Thinking Scale fell significantly over the course of the intervention. Alternatively, participants’ negative outcome expectancies for crime and scores on the PICTS Historical Criminal Thinking scale did not change appreciably from pre- to post-test. Structured equation modeling revealed that the “OEC–POS→Current” cross-lag correlation, but not the “Current→OEC–POS” cross-lag correlation, contributed significant variance beyond that supplied by the two contemporaneous correlations. This latter finding suggests that positive outcome expectancies for crime may be particularly important to address during the early stages of intervention with criminally involved clients.