Lecture 1 Flashcards
1
Q
What is criminal profiling?
A
- Idea we can identify who has committed a crime based on their psychological traces
- Can build a profile around a case on a person
- Public and other professionals have strong beliefs in their effectiveness: 86% of mental health professionals endorse that it is a useful tools for law enforcement
2
Q
What was an example of Criminal Profiling?
A
- Series of shooting around a month - 10 people killed and 4 wounded
- Victims appeared random
- Profilers came up with a consensus
- Actual perpetrators were complete opposite of profile
- Real question is if criminal profilers do better than untrained individuals
3
Q
What was a study on criminal profiles?
A
- Used real murder cases and participants given extensive background information about the case
- Ppts asked to evaluate many aspects of the perpetrator
- Ppts were profilers, homicide detectives, Sr Police officers, trainees and chemistry undergrads
- Found that people were better than if they had no information at all
- No difference between groups, and chem students consistently outperformed everyone else
- No relationship between experience and accuracy
- Meta-analysis shows this also = profiling is pseudoscience
4
Q
Why do people believe in Criminal Profiling?
A
- Physicians Phallacy: only ever report when it goes well = wrong predictions are not reported
- Barnum Effect: people pick out of a profile the bits that seem to fit even if they fit almost everybody, and ignore the rest e.g might have self-esteem issues
- Expertise heuristics: clever people with degrees cannot be talking rubbish
- No coherence to approach and there is little proper research
5
Q
What is Forensic Psychology?
A
- Assessment and management of offenders
- Assess facts and put them together - different from clinical as they look for psych problems and attempt treatment = but both often intertwined
- Formulations are needed to allow understanding of behaviour
6
Q
What are the types of assessments?
A
- Neuropsychological & Physiological tests
- Interviews
- Psychometric tests
- Projective tests
- Objective tests
- Questionnaires
- Malingering and deception: pretending to be ill/violent when well/not and vice versa
7
Q
What does assessment involve? (Documents)
A
- Full case review of collateral information
- Criminal records, police records
- Medical records, including mental health
- School/employment records
- Other reports from professionals
8
Q
What is a clinical interview?
A
- Conversation with a purpose
- Covering areas above e.g childhood, attachments, attitudes
- Semi-structured
- Standardised interviews for some diagnosis
9
Q
What are Similarities and Differences between a clinical interview and a forensic one?
A
- Clinical: look for mental health problems
- F: assess risks in future as well as clinical interview
- Both seek to understand current problems and behaviours of the person and may try to diagnose any mental health problems
- C: treat presenting symptoms, F: report to court on problems and potential consequences
- Client has gain from clinical, but loss in forensic
- Clinical is confidential but forensic is not
10
Q
How to be good at clinical skills?
A
- Opening statements = risk overrides confidentiality = Tarrasof liability
- Developing Rapport = trying to put client at ease and in a mental state where they are willing to share their problems with you
- Non-verbal communication = how to elicit people speaking
- Active listening skills
- Summarising
11
Q
What are psychometric tests?
A
- Standard and scientific method used to measure individuals’ mental capabilities and behavioural style
- Standardised = know what average scores are e.g IQ = know reliability
- e.g Beck’s depression, Impact of Events scale, Paulhaus Deception, Reactive and Proactive Aggression Questionnaire
12
Q
What are Projective tests?
A
- Tests where people give their thoughts/feelings about a thing
- Rorschach Test: ink
- Thematic Apperception test
- House-Tree-Person test
- Often used in children = drawings
13
Q
Evaluation of Projective tests?
A
- Not quantifiable
- Not reliable/validity
- Little evidence they do what they claim
- Conducted a large meta-analysis or projective tests and found little support and no more insight than asking the person
14
Q
What are neuropsychological assessments?
A
- Performance based
- IQ, memory, frontal lobe function
15
Q
What are physiological assessments?
A
- Can use our physiological reactions to infer psychological processes
- Skin Conductance = arousal
- Pupillometry = pupil dilates when aroused = emotion vs complexity
- Others also used like heart rate, frowning, genital response and responses from certain areas of brain
16
Q
What was a study looking at pupil dilation?
A
- Examined pupil dilation to arousing pictures in a sample of male offenders
- Most people’s pupils dilate to both positive and negative pictures
- Those with high scores on psychopathy = pupil did not dilate to the negative pictures
17
Q
What are problems of assessment?
A
- Forensic samples might fake performances on task or lie
- Offenders are motivated to fake bad - pretend to have mental illness to gain lenient sentences = malingering
- Offender may fake good e.g hide thoughts they think will hinder their progress
- Ppts have to be able to understand questions
- Ppts have to norm themselves e.g working in Japan = feel tall, working in netherlands = feel short
- Leads to reference group effect
18
Q
What is malingering?
A
- Offenders claim to be suffering from a psych illness
- May infer malingering from symptom profile via standard tests and suggestibility e.g two symptoms that normally don’t go together OR saying a behaviour should occur and then offender starts doing said behaviour
- Many questionnaires have a lie scale - also specialised questionnaires for detecting faking e.g TOMM = presents a task that appears very difficult but is really easy = some patients score less than chance = must know which one is correct and then pick the other
19
Q
What is faking good?
A
- Many questionnaires have lie scales but these are fairly easy to spot and therefore fake
- Clinical interviews = people tend to minimise and lie
20
Q
What is lie detection?
A
People are not good at spotting lies inc. psychologists/police etc. but there are some modest effects of training
21
Q
What is a polygraph?
A
- Takes physiological responses as person answers questions = person will show an abnormal reaction when lying
- Wild claims about accuracy, ranging from 100-50% = measures arousal instead
- Taking a polygraph clearly changes the amount of disclosure: study compared various measures of disclosure at 4 stages in male sexual offenders = more polygraphs = more admitted number of victims
