MODULE #1 Flashcards
(135 cards)
What issue or concern does Bartol (1996) express about common definitions of ‘police psychology’?
That they fail to include other law enforcement agents such as deputy sheriffs, marshals, or constables.
When did police psychology begin?
2
(1) It was reported police departments in Germany were using psychologists in a variety of capacities as early as 1919.
(2) In 1966, The Munich police were employing a full-time, in-house psychologist to train officers to deal with various patrol problems.
Selecting-in procedures
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(1) intended to identify those attributes that distinguish one candidate over another as being a potentially more effective officer.
(2) Assumes there are traits, habits, reactions, and attitudes that distinguish an outstanding cop from a satisfactory one.
Screening-out procedures
Try to eliminate those applicants who demonstrate significant signs of psychopathy or emotional instability, or lack the basic mental acuity to perform the job in a safe and responsible manner.
According to Bartol (1996), in what activities do contemporary police psychologists engage?
(4)
- Pre-employment screening consumed the largest percentage of their time
- In – house psychologists work directly with the officers in such services as counselling and treatment.
- Full-time consultants are involved in providing various services to the family members of police personnel and more engaged in fitness-for–duty evaluations
- Criminal or psychological profiling of offenders
What challenges in the profession did Bartol (1996) predict?
8
CHALLENGES:
- Psychologists should address issues of diversity, multiculturalism, and discrimination.
- Police psychology depends greatly on political, economic, and social pressures, ultimately reflected in executive, legislative and, to a lesser extent, judicial decision-making.
- Media has played a prominent role with televised events focussing public attention on police behaviour.
- Area needing far more attention is the rural and semi rural community. Police psychologists have typically studied and consulted with large, metropolitan police departments and neglected small town and rural law enforcement which make up the majority of police agencies.
- Women going into law-enforcement still encounter sexual harassment and attitudinal resistance, primarily from their male superiors.
- The growing array of available psychological services has not been integrated systematically into law enforcement.
- Police psychologists need to become better and more skilful researchers and evaluators of programs, including their own.
- Traditional graduate programs are too narrow and circumscribed for training police psychologists. A more broad-based graduate program in police psychology that encompasses not only clinical areas is needed.
What changes in the profession did Bartol (1996) predict? To what extent was he correct?
(14)
- In an attempt to control police deviance, preemployment screening (of the screening-out variety) will continue to be an important service provided by police psychologists.
- Pre-employment screening will be affected by legislation and judicial decision-making. The California court of appeals ultimately ruled that invasive psychological tests violated both the constitutional right to privacy and statutory prohibitions against improper inquiries into a person’s sexual orientation and religious beliefs.
- The MMPI-2 is a vast improvement over its predecessor and addresses many of the legal concerns about standardization and item Content. However, screening instruments including the MMPI-2, will continue to be tested in the courts on validation issues.
- Psychologists will seek to expand their contributions beyond traditional screening, therapy, training, etc. and be drawn to the current flavour of community policing as it attempts to form a coalition between the community and the police to solve community problems. The current interest in community policing may shift some attention to small-town and rural policing.
- The composition of police forces will continue to change significantly in the future which will affect the nature of police psychology. There will be a growing influx of women in policing and an increase in minorities, especially in large metropolitan areas.
- Women will comprise at least 25% of the police forces within the next two decades. This will produce significant changes in police training and the prioritization of services.
- The composition of police psychology will change which will include more from minority groups.
- There will be a shift from the counseling/clinical orientation to more non-mental health-oriented psychological services
- Problem-solving strategies and strategic decision-making models are likely to predominate in the near future.
- Industrial/organization, community, and social psychology will be called upon to make many major theoretical and practical contributions to police psychology.
- Psychological research on how to deal effectively with turnover rates, personnel dissatisfaction, and lowered morale in reactions to budget cuts and cycles of hiring blitzes and freezes will become critical.
- Police psychology increasingly will become international in scope, with psychologists across the globe sharing ideas, research, and programs.
- Police psychology will have graduate programs exclusively devoted to the field.
- There will be anticipated growth in police psychology due to more support in relation to community policing which will welcome the skills and knowledge of police psychologists.
psychology
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(1) the scientific study of behaviour and mind.
(2) looks at how environment, thinking, emotions, and behaviour are all interconnected.
(3) Like many scientific disciplines, psychology is comprised of different areas of study, or streams.
major areas of psychology
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- Cognitive Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Experimental Psychology
- Personality Psychology
- Psychophysiological Psychology
- Psychometrics
- Social Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
study mental process such as attitudes, decision-making, information-processing, logic, and memory process.
Developmental Psychology
studies changes in cognitions, personality, perception, etc., over the entire life course.
Experimental Psychology
design and conduct research studies to test the theoretical propositions found in all of the areas of psychology
Personality Psychology
2
- examines the identification of groupings traits that produce consistent and differentiating behaviour among individuals.
- A large area of personality psychology is focused on the assessment and measurement of these personality traits.
Psychophysiological Psychology
involves the study of the role of biological factors (genetics, neurochemistry, brain functioning) influence our behaviour, personality, and thoughts.
Psychometrics
involves the measurement of behaviour, thought processes, and personality through the development of psychological tests.
Social Psychology
interested in factors that influence interpersonal interactions and focuses on topics such as attitude formation and change, prejudice, attraction and love, aggression, or conformity.
In general, we can organize ‘what psychologists do’ into three major categories.
(1) Clinical Psychologist
(2) Applied Psychologist
(3) Research Psychologist
clinical psychologist
is a professional psychologist who specializes in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of psychological problems.
applied psychologist
2
(1) a professional psychologist who extends the theoretical and empirical methodologies of psychology to other occupations or everyday settings.
(2) A school psychologist, for instance, would incorporate aspects of all the major fields of psychology in the assessment and counselling of students. Similarly, an industrial/organizational psychologist would employ psychometrics in designed tests to assess job and personality fit or assess threats to workplace safety.
research psychologist
designs and conducts experiments (or other types of research) to test and advance theoretical knowledge in the discipline.
It is most accurate to think of forensic psychology as what?
As what a psychologist does in a professional setting.
forensic psychology can be defined as:
the application of psychological research, theory, and clinical practice to areas of concern in the criminal justice system.
According to Bartol and Bartol (2008), forensic psychology has five main areas of focus.
- Police psychology
- Psychology of crime
- Victimology and victim service
- Legal psychology
- Correctional psychology
psychology of crime, as a subfield of interest in forensic psychology, involves:
(2)
- the application of psychological theory to the study of crime and criminality.
- In this area, you might study how information-processing and other cognitive processes are related to aggressive behaviour.