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Forensic PsychologyCh. 1 Forensic Psychology: “Promises and Problems”

Fulero & Wrightsman’s Forensic Psychology, 3rd Edition

What is Forensic Psychology? The word "forensic" comes from the

Latin word "forensis," meaning "of the forum," where the law courts of ancient Rome were held. Today forensic refers to the application of scientific principles and practices to the adversary process where specially knowledgeable scientists play a role.

Defining Forensic PsychologyBroadly defined: Production and application of psychological knowledge to the civil and criminal justice systems.

What Is Forensic Psychology?

Any application of psychological knowledge or methods to a task faced by the legal system human behavior related to the legal process

(eyewitness memory & testimony, jury decision making, criminal behavior)

The professional practice of psychology within or in consultation with the legal system

There is honest disagreement over how broad the definition should be.


The Promise & the Problem of Forensic Psychology Should the training for forensic

psychology be limited to clinical psychology?

Heilbrun’s conceptualization: his model reflects three training areas

and two approaches richer, less adversarial perspective


Defining Forensic PsychologyActivities include: 1. courtroom testimony2. performing child custody evaluations 3. screening of law enforcement candidates

Defining Forensic Psychology4. provision of clinical services to offenders and staff in correctional facilities5. research and theory building in the area of criminal behavior6. design and implementation of intervention and prevention programs for youthful offenders.

Contributions to Forensics Developmental Psychology

custody decisions trying children as adults

Social Psychology interrogators’ use of coercion & persuasion group dynamics of juries

Clinical Psychology mental illness & competence to stand trial prediction of future violence

Cognitive Psychology accuracy of eyewitness testimony jurors’ understanding of legal instructions


Text OverviewImportant Themes of the Author

Wrightsman (2005)Forensic applications provide much opportunity for psychologists but they must remain vigilant and aware that their first duty is to their profession.

Forensic psychology as a discipline, remains in a state of formulation and development.

ActivitiesConsultant to various groups (e.g., police, courts, lawyers...)

Mediator to resolve legal disputes before they had to go to trial

Evaluation researcherCorrectional psychologist

Goals of the Law & Social Science Different goals that are partially in

conflict (John Carroll, 1980, p. 363) Law – issues of morality, social values,

social control, and justifying the application of abstract principles to specific cases. values efficiency and expediency

Social science – issues of knowledge, truth, and deriving abstract principles from specific instances values reproducible phenomena and

underlying concepts and causesFulero & Wrightsman’s

Forensic Psychology, 3rd Edition

The Context of Forensic Psychology (A. Hess, 1999)Epistemic Differences between Psych and Law

Dimension Psychology LawEpistemology Objective: progressively

approach an ultimate truth; bias is balanced by competing theories; rigorous critique and replication

Advocacy: truth is born out of a vigorous advocacy of the “facts” that are consistent with prevailing law

Causation of Behavior Deterministic: the behavioral sciences hold that behavior has causes that are known or potentially known

Free will: both of the public and law hold that people determine their fate. Individual responsibility is considered in most cases


Dimension Psychology Law

Nature of “law” Descriptive: Research will reveal the underlying natural order or lawful relationships between variables. Formulaic or in typologies

Prescriptive: Law directs behavior, clearly states what is proscribed or banned and authorize punishment to enforce proscriptions

Knowledge Empirical: based on nomothetic or normative data gathered through methods described sufficiently to replicate

Rational: based on ideographic or detailed case data; compelling logic to support arguement



Methodology Experimental: control through experimental design or statistical regression allows scientist to eliminate rival hypotheses

Case Method: analyses of the particulars in a case allows the investigator to draw parallels to other cases or to construct a narrative that covers the details in a tightly woven whole

Criteria Conservative p<.05 Expedient: Preponderance more than 50% or beyond a reasonable doubt; clear and convincing.



Principles Exploratory: encourages a multiplicity of theories that are falsifiable and verifiable, or that can be tested and found wanting

Conservative: the predominate theory in a case prevails based on the coherence of the facts to statutes and to the stare decisis or precedent cases

Latitude of courtroom behavior

Limited: restricted to the rules of evidence and the attorney’s questions or amicus briefs

Broad: within the rules of procedure and evidence, and within courtroom decorum; can introduce a wide variety of evidence in a desired sequence

Laws & Values Values

standards for decision making Laws

are created, amended, or discarded because society has established standards for what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior.


The Importance of LawsLaws are human creations that evolve out of the

need to resolve disagreements (Wrightsman, 2001)

A regulation in accordance with reason promulgated by the head of a community for the sake of the common welfare (Aquinas)

Laws reflect values of a society because society establishes standards for what is acceptable. Society's views can change therefore leading to new laws and new interpretations of existing laws (e.g., spousal rape)

Intuition vs. Empiricism Psychologists are trained to answer

questions about human behavior by collecting data. Conclusions aren’t accepted until they’re shown to be reliable and able to be replicated.

Lawyers and judges are more willing to rely on their own experience, their own perspectives, and their intuition or “gut feelings.”

Schall v. Martin (1984) Supreme court declared that judges could predict violence no matter what the research said


The Perspectives of Psychology and the Law What determines truth?

psychologists trained to collect data

police officers personal observations and experiences

attorneys and judges “truth” may be irrelevant


Muller v. Oregon (1907) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was

constitutional to limit the workday of any woman employed in a laundry or factory to 10 hours.

Lawyer Louis Brandeis filed his now-famous “Brandeis Brief,” citing medical and social science research rather than reviewing past cases and statutes.


The Legal System’s Criticism of Psychology Lack of ecological validity of

psychological research Going beyond the data to make moral

judgments Intruding upon the legitimate activities

of the legal system


Illustrative Court Decisions

A Criminal Case: McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) Warren McCleskey, an African-American man,

helped rob a furniture store and was convicted of killing a white police officer who responded.

McCleskey was sentenced to death, but claimed that the state of Georgia administered its death-sentencing laws in a racially discriminatory manner.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his claim (5-4) and he was executed.


Illustrative Court Decisions A Civil Case: Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins

(1989) Ann Hopkins was a very successful

salesperson at this leading accounting firm. She brought in $25 million in business, had

more billable hours than anyone else up for partner that year.

Hopkins was passed over for partnership and advised to take a course at “charm school,” wear makeup and jewelry, and generally be more feminine.


U.S. Supreme Court In such cases “it is not permissible for

employers to use discriminatory criteria, and they (not the plaintiff) must bear the burden of persuading the trier of fact that their decision would have been the same if no impermissible discrimination had taken place.”

Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins (1989) sex discrimination case and sex stereotyping. Did Fiske et al really influence the judes?


Other Tensions Between Law and Psychology

Psychology's emphasis on innovation and counter- intuitive thinking v. law's stare decisis (let the decision stand) model

Psych's experimental method v. Law's adversarial process.

Psych's probabilistic and tentative conclusions v. law's emphasis on certainty or at least the assumption of irrevocability

Psych's abstract and academic v. Law's pragmatic emphasis

Other Tensions Between Law and Psychology: Standard of Truth

Psychology (especially experimental psychology) emphasizes an analytical world view. That is, causes can be determined in probabilistic terms and assume that variables have a separate and knowable influence on our behavior

Law (especially police) will use wider and more varied methods to determine the truth (hunches) and are not bound by empirical limitations

Legal Systems Criticisms of Psychology

Psychology can lack ecological validity (invalid outside of the lab) e.g., death qualified jurors

Erroneously, going beyond scientific claims and making claims that are not in the realm of their expertise.

Psychological knowledge subverting reasonable legal concepts and traditions.

Future Relationship Between Psychology and the Law Reasons for the courts’ reluctance to rely on

empirical research: Judges are conservative and perceive social

scientists to be liberal. Judges are self-confident and do not believe that

they need any assistance from non-lawyers. Judges are human, and it is human nature to be

unscientific. Judges are ignorant of, inexperienced with, or do

not understand empirical social science.


Future Relationship Between Psychology and the Law

Judges perceive science as a threat to their power and prestige.

Law and social science are rival systems with competing logics.

Judges perceive science to be a threat to their power Tanford (1990).


Will Law and Psychology Marry?

Some tend to think that psychology will have a more prominent role in legal contexts in the future (e.g., consultant roles in law enforcement)

Others tend to believe that psychology and the law will have a trouble relating because of:

Brief History of Psychology and Law The Applied Side:

Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909) the father of modern criminology

William Healy studied the causes of juvenile delinquency


Brief History of Psychology and Law The Applied Side: Sigmund Freud (1906)

cautioned Austrian judges that their decisions were influenced by unconscious processes

also claimed that insights from his theory could be used to understand criminal behavior and improve the legal system


In the Beginning:

J. McKeen Cattell Columbia University 1893The Academic Side of Forensic Psychology

Do Chestnut or Oak Trees Lose Their Leaves Earlier in the Fall?Do Horses in the Field Stand With Head or Tail to the Wind?In Which Direction Do the Seeds of an Apple Point?What Was the Weather One Week Ago Today?

(Louis) William Stern

Studied under Ebbinghaus Improved Cattell’s original study by

adding “realism” to it. “Emotions reduce accuracy of recall”

(Louis) William Stern Betrage zur Psychollogie der AussageBetrage zur Psychollogie der Aussage

first journal on the psychology of first journal on the psychology of testimonytestimony

““Subjective sincerity” does not Subjective sincerity” does not guarantee “objective truthfulness”guarantee “objective truthfulness”

Leading questions contaminate the Leading questions contaminate the accuracy of eyewitness accountsaccuracy of eyewitness accounts

What does this mean?In conclusion: therefore, modern forensic psychology began with empirical research on the psychology of testimony

Courtroom Testimony Americans disinterested in this area

unlike the Europeans Wundt warned his students about

applying psychology without much experimentation and most heeded his warning

The big exception was Munsterberg

Hugo MunsterbergThe Academic Side:Arrived in U.S. in 1892 at the invitation of William James

Adademic Contributions Prior to Munsterberg Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885)

demonstrated the rapid rate of early memory loss Alfred Binet (as early as 1900)

studied children’s competence as eyewitnesses Louis William Stern (1902)

published eyewitness research in Germany Guy Montrose Whipple (1909)

conducted classic experiments relating testimony and evidence to perception and memory


Munsterberg’s Goals for Psychology and the Law Raising the position of the psychological

profession to one of importance in public life In his attempts to encourage more

interaction between the fields of law and psychology, he was sometimes insulting to those in the legal profession.


Munsterberg 1914 published The Mind of the

Juryman “the psychologist has every reason to

be satisfied with the jury system as long as the women are kept out of it.”

His claims were often exaggerated and boasted in the literature

On the one side he successfully pushed his American colleagues into the practical legal arena while on the other side expected more out of psychology than it could deliver

MunsterbergPsychology and the Law

Munsterberg called for more interaction between law and psychology (maybe how he called for it was more a problem than what he called for)

Munsterberg believed that the individual could not accurately judge the real world that existed outside him or her, or their own mind. Therefore, courts need psychologists because they could be more objective

Munsterberg’s Three Crucial Activities

1. Demonstrated the fallibility of memory

2. Published On the Witness Stand (1908)

3. Offered testimony as an expert witness in highly publicized trials


MunsterbergPsychology could be brought into court in three ways

Showing how frail human memory is...

Experimental psychology could be useful in court as his publications could demonstrate.

Being available for noteworthy and famous cases(Big Bill Haywood case; IWW, bombing, word association test and the newspaper interview)

Munsterberg

Inflated claims of psychology ("pierce the mind")

Advocacy

Strong negative reaction from the legal community

William Marston(1893 -1947)

William Marston One of the most influential psychologists

in the early days of forensic psychology A student of Munsterberg without

alienating the legal community Received a law degree and a Ph.D. both

from Harvard

William Marston Discovered a significant positive correlation

between systolic blood pressure and lying One of the first consultants in New York City On a less serious note he was a cartoonist who

created the Wonder Woman character in 1941.

Acceptance of Psychologists as Expert Witnesses It is generally believed that Americans

served as expert witnesses since the 1920’s

The first case was State v. Driver 1921. Only a partial victory since the witness was accepted their testimony was not accepted. This was a West Virginia case involving a 12 year old attempted rape victim and the expert witness worked for the state as a researcher.

Acceptance of Psychologists as Expert Witnesses People v. Hawthorne (1940), a Michigan

case. Hawthorne was tried for murder of his wife’s lover and had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The trial court rejected the expert witness (a Ph.D. with impressive credentials) in favor of a physician. The Michigan supreme court ruled that the psychologist should have been allowed to testify because of his extensive knowledge and background.

Acceptance of Psychologists as Expert Witnesses

Other psychologists were involved with the school desegregation cases in the 1950’s. Brown v. Board of Education involved expert testimony of Kenneth Clark and his famous doll research.

Cognitive and Personality Assessment While Munsterberg was proselytizing

psychology’s usefulness in the court room, another American psychologist was quietly making inroads into a different forensic domain.

In 1909, clinical psychologist Grace Fernald worked with Psychiatrist William Healy to establish the first clinic specifically designed for youthful offenders: the Juvenile Psychopathic Institute.

Cognitive and Personality Assessment

Grace Fernald utilized the Standford Binet but noticed the need for more performance data on clients. She and Healy invented a test to measure 23 different areas of performance.

Correctional Psychology According to Lindner (1955) 1913 is the

start date for psychological services offered within a correctional facility (a women’s reformatory in New York).

The main task of these psychologists was to help detect “feeble-mindedness”.

The first state to provide comprehensive psychological services upon entering prison was Wisconsin.

Correctional Psychology According to Corsini (1945) in the

1940’s there were 200,000 inmates being served by a mere 80 psychologists

Their work consisted of testing, guidance, and consulting

By the 1960’s the major use of psychologists was to help diagnose and classify

Police Psychology Terman (1917) was the first

psychologist to use mental tests to help in the selection of law enforcement personnel.

Terman (Binet-Simon Test) low IQ’s Thurstone (1922, Army Alpha) low IQ’s Maude Merrill (1927, Army Alpha

administered to already employed officers; better results)

Other Developments

Inactive period (1914-1970s)Resurgence in the 1970'sSocial psychology and social policyMore "action" oriented research

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