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Studies on the moral judgment of offenders conducted within a neo-Kolhbergian framework found that offenders exhibit more primitive thinking about moral issues compared to nonoffenders. The purpose of this study is to explore, within the mental model theory, the role of reasoning in moral judgments of offenders, considering both similarities and differences with nonoffenders.

A series of moral scenarios were randomly presented to both offenders and nonoffenders. Participants were asked to report their reactions for each scenario. Their reactions were coded and assessed.

Findings show that moral judgments rely on the same reasoning processes in both offenders and nonoffenders: a moral scenario, in which propositions related to norms and values were manipulated, led to a scenario that generated a moral conflict (Study 1), but offenders had more intuitions about immoral scenarios than nonoffenders (Study 2). Moreover, the results partially confirm the prediction that offenders are more likely to deliberately reason about scenarios that described those crimes similar to the ones they committed (Study 3).

This study highlights the importance of understanding that moral judgments in both offenders and nonoffenders rely on the same reasoning processes, even though offenders tend to reason more on scenarios near to the crimes they committed. This has practical implications for interventions in so far as it could have an effect in how prosocial functioning could be promoted.