Chapter 1: Introduction to Forensic Psychology Flashcards
forensic psychology
a field of psychology that deals with all aspects of human behaviour as it relates to the law or legal system
history of forensic psychology
Dates back to the late 19th century
James Cattell
a Columbia University scholar who conducted experiments looking at what would later be called the psychology of eyewitness testimony
Albert Binet
conducted numerous studies that showed that asking children to report everything they saw resulted in the most accurate answers, while highly misleading questions resulted in the least accurate answers
William Stern
a German psychologist who developed the “reality experiment” that is now commonly used by eyewitness researchers to study eyewitness recall and recognition
reality experiment
participants are exposed to staged events and are then asked to provide information about the event
Stern’s conclusions from the reality experiment
- He found that the testimony of participants was often incorrect
- Recall was the worst for portions of the event that were particularly exciting
- He concluded that emotional arousal can negatively impact the accuracy of a person’s testimony
Albert von Schrenck-Notzing
a German physician who was one of the first expert witnesses to provide testimony in court about the pretrial publicity on memory. He introduced the idea of retroactive memory falsification
retroactive memory falsification
the process whereby people confuse actual memories of events with the events described by the media
Hugo Musterberg
- Reviewed interrogation records of some high-profile American crimes and concluded that the so-called confessions were untrue. Many members of the legal community took a stance against Musterberg
- In his book On the Witness Stand, he argued that psychology had much to offer to the legal system, helping to push North American psychologists into the legal arena
contributions of psychologists to criminology
Psychologists were instrumental in opening the first clinic for juvenile delinquents in 1909, developing laboratories to conduct pretrial assessments in 1916, and establishing psychological testing for law enforcement selection purposes in 1917
State v. Driver, 1921
accepted expert evidence from a psychologist in the area of juvenile delinquency, but rejected the testimony
People v. Hawthorne, 1940
a psychologist was permitted, on an appeal, to provide an opinion about the mental state of the defendant at the time of his offence
Jenkins v. United States, 1962
reinforced that psychologists are competent to provide expert testimony on mental disorders
psychologists as expert witnesses in the U.S. today
It is now customary in the U.S. for psychologists to testify in matters such as criminal responsibility, fitness to stand trial, risk assessment, treatment of traumatic brain injury, factors affecting eyewitness memory, jury decision-making, the impact of hostile work environments, etc.
progress in Canada vs. the U.S. in allowing psychologists to testify
- Canadian courts have been slower than courts in the U.S. to open their doors to psychologists, largely due to educational attainment
- In many Canadian provinces and territories, becoming a psychologist only requires a master’s degree, which courts may perceive to be an inadequate level of training to qualify as an expert in some circumstances
forensic psychology as a legitimate field
- There is a growing number of highly-quality textbooks in the area
- Numerous academic journals are now dedicated to various aspects of the field and more mainstream psychology journals publish research from the forensic domain at a regular rate
- Many professional associations have been developed to promote research in the area
- New training opportunities are being established and existing training opportunities are being improved
- The APA formally recognized forensic psychology as a specialty discipline in 2001
