The concept of a cognitive script was first developed in the 1970s by a multi-disciplinary team of cognitive psychologists and computer scientists led by Robert Abelson and Roger Schank at Yale University. Schank and Abelson’s (1977) original formulation of scripts was concerned with their function as structures for memorising knowledge. However, Abelson (1981) argued that because scripts function specifically to organise ‘procedural knowledge,’ i.e. knowledge that is exercised in order to perform a specific task, scripts can be equally useful for understanding the behaviour that is directed by this kind of knowledge.
Scripts provide actors with templates (Schank & Abelson, 1977) that organise knowledge and guide behaviour in familiar or conventional activities; in doing so scripts provide a form of ‘perceptual shorthand’ that allow the actor to operate successfully within a complex world through simplified, stereotypical knowledge structures. In other words, they provide a selection of sub-routines that can be performed without thinking too much about them. The most frequently quoted example is that of the restaurant script, which contains the scenes: finding a seat, reading the menu, ordering drinks from the waiting staff and so on (Schank & Abelson, 1977). Similarly, Morr, Serewicz and Gale (2007) examined first date scripts, identifying a regular pattern of scenes that start with ‘GET READY’ and (hopefully) end with ‘FUTURE PLANS’. Script frameworks have been applied extensively to several realms of social life including shopping (e.g. Leigh & Rethans, 1983), sexual behaviour (e.g. Krahé,
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Bieneck & Scheinberger-Olwig, 2007), management studies (e.g. Goodhew, Cammock & Hamilton, 2008) and education (Monteiro, Carillo and Santiago, 2010).
Scripts enable the actor to rapidly retrieve past action experience that is relevant to the current situation, sometimes even before the actor is in possession of full information about the
circumstances (Seifert et al., 1994). To aid their implementation, scripts contain cues that prompt the actor to select the most relevant script, for the current goal and present circumstances. These prompts guide both decision making and physical behaviour.
For complex processes the decision making is broken down into stages. These stages are organised in a hierarchical structure in which lower level goals are the means through which higher level goals are achieved. Thus, lower level, tactical goals are performed ‘in order to’ achieve higher level goals.
The existence of in order to relations imposes inherent causal, logical and clear temporal structures to a script. In such cases certain script scenes will have a strict temporal order with later stages being strictly dependent on earlier steps of the sequence, while in contrast, other scripts will allow greater flexibility in their ordering. Initial script scenes can shape action in later scenes with early scenes restricting or expanding the range of choices available to perform subsequent scenes.
Scripts can contain cues that indicate that action possibilities exist for a given set of circumstances.
Abelson (1981) argues that actors will have a rule-based policy for the initiation of a script that is influenced by situational conditions. In concurrence with the rational choice perspective, relevant conditions governing script initiation might include costs, effort or incentives. Abelson cited several research studies investigating the willingness of individuals to engage in behaviour to assist others, these studies revealed how very small variations in situational context can result in significant differences to the probability of entering into a script. Abelson concluded that ‘the situational lability of behaviour is theoretically troublesome for explanations based on abstract values such as altruism or social responsibility. But from a script orientation, such lability is more or less what one would expect’ (p.719). If an individual’s probability of engaging in helping behaviour is open to change based on small differences in situational context, it would be reasonable to expect that situational context would similarly influence the initiation of criminal behaviours. These observations would appear to support Wikström’s situational action theory, and provide an explanation for the lability, or variation, in offender decision making which Sutton finds unscientific. For example, Eck (1993) found that an offender’s familiarity with a situation influenced his commitment to crime
commission. Eck argued that an offender will persist when, places, or targets are familiar to him and that he will be less likely to persist when they are not.
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Abelson (1981) argues that an individual must not only recognise that the possibility to perform a script exists, they must also commit themselves to performing it. He states that ‘starting a script performance usually entails a commitment to finish it’ (p.719). Notwithstanding the latter, it is possible that crime scripts, performed as they are in hostile circumstances, may contain a greater number of readily embedded prompts and pathways for ‘script abortion’ than other types of behaviour.
In addition to prompts that guide an actor’s behaviour, scripts (as cognitive representations) contain details of the resources or ‘props’ that are required to complete a scene. Since the majority of tasks are performed in social situations, script will also include an outline of the way in which other actors are expected to behave. Script templates can contain tags that flag people who have particular skills or resources to assist in accomplishing script goals. Scripts can, therefore, help handle collaborators, unwitting assistants (such as crime promoters) and adversaries and can include strategies for handling both the complementary and clashing scripts of other actors. It was noted above, that scripts help to narrow the actor’s choice down to the most familiar sub-goals that seem to fit with the current conditions. By relying on this shortlist of pathways to goal, actors are guided to the most appropriate path for their given circumstances and heuristically avoid the need to make a
comprehensive search of all options. Studies in artificial intelligence have shown that sequential searches through memory are inefficient (Abelson, 1981) therefore, such a strategy for script selection would defeat the distinctive benefits of scripts in serving to simplify elements of decision making. This conception of decision making fits well with the conception of ‘bounded’ or ‘situated rationality’ within rational choice theory, discussed earlier.
On the surface, the notion of predefined pathways to goals can paint an overly mechanical picture of thinking and behaviour. However, it is important to note that scripts provide a structure for
organising decision making and realising it, not replacing it. In this way, scripts are distinctly different from habits, with habits directing strictly automated behaviour. Wikström (2009) distinguishes between action that follows deliberation and action that is force of habit. Scripts offer a means to organise both sorts of action. Examination of scripts reveals that one obvious way in which these frameworks facilitate mindful behaviour is the necessary inclusion of scenes that require an explicit decision. For example, the classic restaurant script includes the scene ‘decide what to order’ as Abelson notes ‘while it is possible for ordering food to become habituated to a single food item, there is typically a place in the script specifically marked, in effect, as “Now think”’ (1981, p.723). As will be seen below, these observations can be extended to scenes within crime commission scripts, including ‘target selection.’ Wikström stipulates that it is possible for habitual behaviour to be
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interrupted by interferences; again, the script framework can be used to understand how interferences are managed with action being diverted from the automatic to the scripted.
Like habits, unusual situations may not be scripted. Langer, Blank and Chanowitz (1978) found that scripts were not used when circumstances were so novel that the situation has to be processed in detail. Copes, Hochstetler and Cherbonneau’s (2012) research demonstrated that carjackers did not always stick to their scripts and were at times forced to divert from scripts to actions that required greater consideration and planning. Thus there is, therefore, a continuum of actions from reflex, habit, scripted /prompted deliberation and novel behaviour.
Scripts can facilitate the processes of learning. Once a new action is performed, or even observed, novel behaviour can become embedded as a new script or incorporated into an elaboration of an existing one. Importantly, Eckland-Olson, Lieb and Zurcher (1984 in Hochstetler, 2001) argued that script scenes are interchangeable, allowing elements of scripts to be ‘decoupled’ in order to provide the ‘cognitive building blocks’ for the performance of new, non-scripted, tasks. This recombination of existing script elements represents an important form of innovation; if successful, a new
combination is remembered for the future. This is reflected in the observation that individuals who have experience and expertise in a given task, will tend to have more thoroughly developed scripts.
Examining what novices do poorly can also reveal what has to be learnt to successfully perform a given script, as demonstrated by Carroll and Weaver (1986) in their comparison of expert and novice shoplifters.
Experience in performing a given script can also lead to its refinement. When established scripts are applied within a situation they are reformulated based on feedback resulting from their
performance. If one means to the end is blocked, then actors can select an alternative route. Where familiar, scripted, actions do not produce expected outcomes and pathway alternatives are
unsuitable, then more conscious attention is triggered. The experience of overcoming obstacles can then be incorporated as part of a refined version of the script. This was demonstrated in Copes, Hochstetler and Cherbonneau’s (2011) study of carjackers in which robbers described how bad experiences caused them to build revisions into future performances – for example, ensuring a less conspicuous approach, and watching victims carefully in case they reach for a weapon. Graesser, Gordon and Sawyer (1979 in Abelson, 1981) call this incorporation of new experiences "tagging,"
and Piaget terms the process “adaptive learning” (Piaget, 1954 in Ekblom, 2011). During this process, new information is explicitly encoded and tagged into a generic script structure. Positive experiences can also act to refine scripts, although, Bower, Black and Turner (1979) found that obstacles and errors are remembered particularly well.
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The facility to incorporate newly learnt information into scripts is central to the ability to adapt behaviour in the light of changing circumstances, either to short term changes in the environment or more permanent ‘phase shifts’ requiring substantial adaptation. Cornish and Clarke (2002)
distinguished between first order and second order elaboration of scripts. In first order elaborations, new pathways are identified for accomplishing existing script scenes. Second order elaborations result in more significant script changes, for example, the insertion of new scenes or the reordering of existing ones. Investigation of these elaborations will be particularly important for the present research into script change.
Of particular import to the present research are the patterns that are produced as a result of
similarities in the ways offenders perform crime scripts. While individuals construct, store and adapt their own scripts, Greene (1989 in Woodhams & Toye, 2007) proposed that 'because some things work in achieving goals and others do not, people will tend to establish similar representations of action - outcome relationships,’ (p.202). Still, this does not lead to completely uniform patterns of behaviour amongst those with similar goals (or different occasions in which the same individual achieves the same goal). Abelson (1981) outlines the concept of equifinal actions, to explain the observation that different actions can be performed in order to accomplish the same result (i.e.
there is more than one way to peel an orange).
Greene’s observation that certain steps are always necessary to get particular jobs done applies to physical elements of task performance, but due to cultural norms, it also applies to social elements of tasks. The ‘first date’ scripts described above are shaped by cultural norms and expectations and within these cultures, script availability may be shaped by social status (for example gender, age, or religion). From the perspective of situational action theory all action is moral action; therefore, the moral outlook of the actor will restrict the scripted actions available to individuals. The script pathways of offenders may violate mainstream cultural norms but there is still room for them to be shaped by the values of offending sub-groups. Other script pathways may be shaped by access to resources such as money or transport.
A distinction can be made between strong and weak scripts. As a result of restrictive physical and/or social constraints, strong scripts display a high level of agreement in how script pathways are
performed and therefore, most people perform the script in the same way. This compares to weak scripts that allow greater freedom and display less agreement and greater variation in the way people perform them. Consequently while the nature of scripted behaviour leads to high levels of between-actor consistency this will always be diluted to a degree by inter-individual variation (Mischel, 1999 in Woodhams, Hollin & Bull, 2007).
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The above discussion has argued that while scripts do not replace inference processes they do serve to facilitate rapid and efficient decision making and action in a number of ways. Script frameworks contain several shortcuts to decision making including: alerts to potential action possibilities in a given situation, cues about how to act in certain circumstances, prompts and resources required to complete all or part of a task and guidance to the anticipated behaviour of other actors.