FP MIDTERM 1 Flashcards
James Cattell
Psychology of eyewitness testimony
confidence in the testimony
Alfred Binet
French psychologist in the early 1900s
studied susceptibility in children
- Testimony provided by children highly susceptible to suggestive questioning techniques - free recall produce more accurate answers
William Stern
emotional aerosol has a negative impact on the accuracy of witness testimony
Albert Von Schrenck
German expert witness
- Testified about the impact of extensive pre-trial press coverage
- Retroactive memory falsification = When people confuse actual memory of event with with events described by the media
- What we actually see vs what’s reported
Munsterberg
- considered by many to be the father of forensic psychology
- best known for his controversial book “on the witness stand” which helped push North American psychologist into the legal arena
Narrow definition
focused primarily on clinical aspects of the forensic assessment, treatment and clinical practice
(not the preferred definition)
Excludes psychologists who primarily conduct forensic research
Broad Definition
professional practice that examines human behaviour directly related to the legal process and practice that embraces both criminal and civil law
Clinical forensic psychologists
Psychologist who are broadly concerned with the assessment and treatment of mental health issues as they pertain to the law or legal system
Roles/Duties of a clinical forensic psychologist
- conducting divorce and child custody mediation
- providing expert testimony on questions of a psychological nature
- carrying out personal selection
- running clinical incident stress debriefing with police officers
- facilitating treatment programs for offenders
Forensic psychiatry
a field of medicine that deals with all aspects of human behaviour as it relates to the law and the legal system
Experimental forensic psychologist
psychologist who are broadly concerned with the study of human behaviour as it related to the law or the legal system
Research issues that are of interest to forensic psychologist
- examining the effectiveness of assessment strategies
- Determining what factors influence jury decision making
- determining and testing better ways to conduct eye witness lineups
- evaluating offender and victim treatment programs
- study the effect of stress management interventions on police officers
Craig Handley
3 ways that psychology and the law relate to each other
psychology AND the law
Craig Handley
- the use of psychology to examine the operation of the legal system
- ”Are eyewitnesses accurate?”
psychology IN the law
Craig Handley
- the use of psychology in the legal system as that system operates
- Expert testimony
psychology OF the law
Craig Handley
- the use of psychology to examine the law itself
- “Is the death penalty an effective deterrent?”
Expert witness
a witness who provides the court with information (often an opinion on a particular matter) that assists the court in understanding an issue of relevance to a case
- their purpose is to serve as an educator to the judge and the jury, not as an advocate for the defence or the prosecution
General acceptance test
a standard for accepting expert testimony, which states that expert testimony will be admissible in court if the basis of the testimony is generally accepted within the relevant scientific community.
resulted from - Frye v. United States (1923)
Daubert Criteria
An American standard for accepting expert testimony, which states that scientific evidence is valid if the research on which it is based has been peer reviewed, is testable, has a recognized rate of error, and adheres to professional standards
Daubert v. Merrell Dow, Inc. (1993)
Mohan Criteria
A Canadian standard for accepting expert testimony, which states that expert testimony will be admissible in court if the testimony is, relevant, is necessary for assisting the their of fact, does not violate any exclusionary rules, and is provided by a qualified expert
R v. Mohan (1994)
psychology and law differences
(1) Epistemology
(2) Nature of law
(3) Knowledge
(4) Methodology
(5) Criterion
(6) Principals
(7) Latitude of courtroom behaviour
State v. Driver (1921)
- First court case in the U.S. where expert testimony is provided by a psychologist:
- Represented a partial victory for psychology in that the court accepts only a portion of the psychologist’s testimony
- Relevance of psychological and medical tests in detecting lies was in question
Jenkins v. United States (1962)
- Court rules some psychologists are qualified to give expert testimony on the issue of mental disease:
- Jury instructed to disregard initial testimony
- Reversed on appeal with reference to APA report
- Helped to increase the extent to which psychologists can contribute to legal proceedings
People v. Hawthrone (1940)
- Set the U.S. precedent for psychologist testifying as an expert witness on competence and criminal responsibility
- Standard for determining expert status is not a medical degree but extent of knowledge
Brown v. board of education (1954)
- In 1951, the district refused to enrole the daughter of local black resident Oliver Brown at the school closest to their home, instead requiring her to ride a bus to a segregated black elementary school further away
- The Browns and twelve other black Topeka families then filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. federal court against the Topeka Board of Education, alleging that the school district’s segregation policy was unconstitutional
- Psychologists submitted brief outlining detrimental effects of segregation
Roles of Forensic Psychologist
Clinician
Researcher
Legal Scholar
Clinician
Broadly concerned with mental health issues in the legal system Tasks can include: - Assessment and treatment of offenders - Custody mediations - Providing expert testimony - Personnel selection
Researcher
Also concerned with mental health issues in the legal system but also with any issues related to the legal system
Research interests can include:
- Examining risk assessment strategies
- Testing ways of conducting eyewitness lineups
- Evaluating offender treatment programs
Legal Scholar
The least common role for forensic psychologists
Interests can include:
- Engage in scholarly analysis of mental health law
- Policy analysis
Police selection procedures
a set of procedures used by the police to either screen out undesirable candidates or select in desirable candidates
Job Analysis
A procedure for identifying the knowledge, skills, and abilities that make a good police officer
Predictive validity
The extend to which scores on a test (ex- a cognitive abilities test) predict scores on some other measure (ex- supervisor ratings of police performance)
Selection interview
In recruiting police officers, an interview used by the police to determine the extent to which an applicant possesses the knowledge, skills, and abilities deemed important for the job
Cognitive abilities Test
procedure for measuring verbal, mathematical, memory and reasoning abilities
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
An assessment instrument for identifying people with psychopathological problems
Inwald personality inventory
An assessment used to identify police applications who are suitable for police work by measuring their personality attributes and behaviour patterns
assessment centre
A facility in which the behaviour of police applications can be reserved in a number of situations by multiple observers
situational test
a simulation of a real world policing task
sources of police stress
1 - organizational stressors (related to organizational issues)
2 - occupational stressors (relating to the job itself)
3 - Criminal justice stressors
4 - public stressor
Resiliency training
training delivered to police officers to improve their ability to effectively adapt to stress and adversity
psychological debreifing
a psychologically oriented intervention delivered to police officers following exposure to an event that resulted in psychological distress and an impairment of normal functioning
police interrogation
a process whereby the police interview a suspect for the purpose of gathering evidence an obtaining a confession
Reid Model
A nine-step model of interrogation used frequently in North America to extract confessions from suspects
- Reid model relies on psychological tactics to make the consequences of confessing more desirable than the anxiety related yo deception
- the purpose of the model is to make the suspect outweigh their anxiety caused by deception with the fear of confessing
Minimization Techniques
soft sell tactics used by police interrogators designed to lull the suspect into a false sense of security
Maximization Techniques
Scare tactics used by police interrogators that are designed to intimate a suspect believed to be guilty
potential problems with the Reid Model
Three problems
1 - ability of investigators to detect deception
2- biases that may result when an interrogator, incorrectly that a suspect is guilty
3- the coercive and/or suggestive nature of certain interrogation practices
Deception Detection
detecting when someone is being deceptive
- deception detection by officer = inaccurate
Myths about police interrogations
1- police officers often use the sorts of physically coercive interrogation tactics that you see in good detective shows
2- by law, police officers aren’t allowed to use trickery in their interrogations for the purpose of extracting a confession
3- there is no need for people to worry about being interrogated by the police; individuals in Canada must be read their legal rights and this provides all the protection they need
4- if someone confesses to a crime, that indicates that the person did in fact commit the crime
Investigator bias
bias that can result when police officers enter interrogation setting already believing that the suspect is guilty
False confession
a confession that is either intentionally fabricated or is not based on actual knowledge of the facts that form its content
- three types of false confessions
Retracted confession
a confession that the confessor later declares to be false
Disputed Confession
A confession that is later disputed at trail
Voluntary False confession
a false confession that is provided without any elicitation from the police
ex- The Lindbergh case
-Child abducted more than 200 people can forward to confess that they were the abductor - wanted to be famous
Coerced-compliant false confession
A confession that results from a desire to escape a coercive interrogation environment or gain a benefit promised by the police
ex- MJS confession to child abuse
- Guy who him and wife brought infant to ER for chest pain, turns out he had broken rib- child services called, integrated him so bad he could no longer handle it as admitted even though he didn’t
Coerced-internalized false confession
a confession that results from suggestive interrogation techniques, whereby the confessor actually comes to believe he or she committed the crime
ex- The Billy Wayne Cope case
- Man with low IQ admitted to doing it because he was confused and couldn’t remember much
compliance
a tendency to go along with the demands made by people perceived to be in authority, even through the person may not agree
Internalization
the acceptance of guilt for an act, even if the person did not actually commit the act
Confabulation
the reporting of events that never actually occurred
Polygraph
a device for recording an individuals automatic nervous system responses
polygraph disclosure tests
polygraph tests that are used to uncover information about an offender’s past behaviour
Comparison Question Test
a type of polygraph test that includes irrelevant questions that are unrelated to the crime, relevant questions concerning the crime being investigated, and comparison questions concerning the person’s honestly and past history prior to the event being investigated
Correlated information test
a type of polygraph test designed to determine if a person knows details about a crime
Countermeasures
as applied to polygraph research, techniques used to try to conceal guilt
Event-related brain potentials
brain activity measured by placing electrodes on the scalp and by recording electrical patterns related to presentation of stimulus
Truth-bias
the tendency of people to judge more messages as truthful than deceptive
Factitious disorder
a disorder in which the person’s physical and psychological symptoms are intentionally produced and are adapted for no external rewards
Munchausen syndrome by proxy
a rare disorder in which a person intentionally produces an illness in his or her child
Malingering
intentionally faking psychological or physical symptoms for some type of external gain
Defensiveness
conscious denial or extreme minimization of physical or psychological symptoms
Stimulation design
as applied to malingering research, people are told to pretend they have specific symptoms or a disorder
known-groups design
as applied to malingering research, involves comparing genuine patients and malingerers attempting to fake the disorder the patients have
