Forensic Psychology Exam 1

Criminal Profiling

Any process used to infer distinctive personality traits, behavioral tendencies, physical and demographic characteristics, or even geographic locations of individuals responsible for committing criminal acts from physical and/or behavioral evidence

Industrial/organization Psychology

Specialty in psychology that works with industry on assessment and classification of workers, organizational morale and culture, and workers' performance

Psychology

The study of the mind and behavior

criminal law

the area of law that deals with offenses committed against the safety of society or acs against the state

civil law

the area of law that deals with the infringement upon the civil of rights of an individual or organization; non criminal law

Forensic Psychology

the application of clinical specialties to legal institutions and people who come into contact with the law

Legal Psychology

The scientific study of the effect of the law on people, and the effect people have on the law.

Social Psychology

The study of how people influence others behavior and attitudes

Cognitive Psychology

A subfield of psychology concerned with the study of cognition and mental processes including memory and eyewitness testimony

Developmental Psychology

A subfield of psychology that focuses on the study of the changes in behavior and mental processes over time due to aging and maturation

Vanity Boards

Certification boards that have minimal or nonexistent requirements for board certification

Diplomate

recognition by a professional association that a member has advanced training, skill,s and competence; commonly referred to as board certified

Criminal Responsibility

Culpability for a crime; accountability for a criminal behavior; often discussed with the insanity defense

American Psychological Association (APA)

scientific and professional body that represents psychology in the US

Competency

The ability or capacity to perform a specific task or function with rationality. The dusky standard is used to determine competency to stand trial

Expert Witness

Any individual who has been qualified as an ‘expert’ by the trial judge due to specialized knowledge or skill

Malingering

An individual attempts to feign symptoms or exaggerate symptoms during assessment, usually for secondary gain.

Police Psychology

Area of forensic psychology that focuses on law enforcement personnel; includes the assessment and treatment of law enforcement personnel.

Investigative hypothesis

A tool used to help enhance a victims recollection of a crime

Psychology Autopsy

A retrospective examination of social and psychological events prior to an individuals death

False memory syndrome

False memories that have been implanted inadvertently through suggestive therapy techniques but the individual believes the memories to be real

Standard of care

The appropriate practice for the delivery of mental health or medical services; a standard of care should be based on scientific evidence and is the expected minimum care within the profession.

Advocate

One who pleads on behalf of another individual; an advocate will promote their interests of their client

Core Competencies

Skills and knowledge that enable a professional to engage in scientifically minded practice.

Specialty Competencies

Skills distinctive to a particular specialty, for example; legal knowledge is a specialty competency for forensic psychologists

Jurisdiction

Synonymous with the word “power” and is the authority to preside over a given case

Fact witness

A person who testifies about things they know or have personally perceived

Amicus Curiae Brief

Letter to the court from a “friend of the court” typically a person or organization that provides information to the court relevant to a case before the court

General Acceptance rule

For scientific expert testimony to be admissible, it must be based on generally accepted scientific methods

Relevancy

Expert testimony must be directly related to the issues of the case; one criterion used to determine admissibility of expert testimony

Legal sufficiency

A criterion used in determining the admissibility of expert testimony. Legal sufficiency relates to whether the testimony is likely to assist the jury.

Ultimate issues

the final question that must be decided by the court; usually left to trier of fact to decide

Penultimate issue

elements that define the ultimate issues and do not appear to unduly influence the jury

witness immunity

when an expert witness is exempt from criminal or civil liability for action or testimony as an expert witness

Stare decisis

Latin; meaning Let the decision stand, used in case law as the standard that states that legal rules decided in cases govern subsequent cases; contributes to the consistency of laws

Competency

the ability or capacity to perform a specific task or function with rationality. The Dusky standard is used to determine competency to stand trial

Mens Rea

A guilty mind, or free will with the intention of doing harm

Psychological Assessment

The entire evaluative process used to measure a person’s psychological status

Standard error of measurement

the amount of variation in a score each time it is assessed,

Test battery

a group of assessment instruments and techniques selected to answer a specific referral question

Projective hypothesis

Assumes that people project their unconscious into their responses to ambiguous stimuli and is associated with the use of projective assessment techniques

Criterion Keying

Identifying a criterion group and a control group, and using their responses to identify which question reliably distinguish between the two groups; the method used to develop the MMPI scales

Affirmative defense

defendant admits guilt, but claims he did not possess “mens rea” at the time of the offense

Duress

Unlawful threat or coercion used to cause another to act in a manner that they otherwise would not

Delusions

irrational beliefs, often associated with severe mental illness

Hallucinations

hearing, seeing, or feeling things that are not actually present, typically associated with severe mental illness

burden of proof

the necessity of proving facts in a dispute, the burden typically rests with the prosecution in criminal trials, and plaintiff in civil trials

Insanity

a legal term addressing a defendant’s culpability for a crime. McNaughten standard and Durham standard used

Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD)

a personality disorder listen in the DSM, characterized by infringing on the rights of others, includes aggressiveness, deceitfulness etc.

Dusky Standard

The standard used to determine competency to stand trial. A defendant must understand the nature of the proceedings against him/her and must be rationally able to assist the attorney

Decisional Competence

The ability to make necessary decisions before, during, and after a trial

Competency Screening Test

A brief screening instrument consisting of 22 sentence stems related to a legal scenarios used to help determine competency to stand trial

Georgia Court Competency test

Screening instrument that uses a drawing of the courtroom to prompt the defendants on courtroom protocol and personnel

Unstructured clinical jugement

a risk assessment approach based on clinical experience and professional opinion

Actuarial approach

an approach to risk assessment that relies on identifying risk factors that are statistically related to later violence

Structured professional judgement

an approach to risk assessment that combines the strengths of the unstructured clinical judgement and actuarial approaches

what is the Daubert Rule?

set of guidelines that judges use to determine the reliability of expert testimony in court

what is the The Frye Test

legal standard used to determine whether scientific evidence is admissible in court, stating that expert testimony based on a scientific technique is only allowed if that technique is generally accepted as reliable within the relevant scientific community

what is legal sufficency

something meets legal requirements or is in compliance with the law

Types of forensic assessments

1. criminal

2. Civil

3. Screenings (for LEOs)

Forensic Assessment in civil Proceedings

child custody, parental rights, employment discrimination etc.

Distinctions between a clinical evaluation and forensic evaluation

• Purpose of the evaluation
• Who is the client
• Motivation of the examinee
• Written report
• Psychologist’s Cognitive set
• Professional accountability
• Temporal focus of the assessment

M'naghten Rule

standard for defining insanity in 1/3 of states

• defendant didn’t know what he was doing OR

  • defendant didn’t know what he was doing was wrong

Durham Rule (product rule)

Durham rule, also known as the
product rule, stated
• “that an accused is not
criminally responsible if his
unlawful act was the product
of a mental disease or mental
defect.”

Brawner Rule

A person is not responsible for criminal
conduct if at the time of such conduct as
a result of mental disease or defect he
lacks substantial capacity either to
appreciate the criminality (wrongfulness)
of his conduct or to conform his conduct
to the requirements of the law.

Insanity Defense Reform Act

1. burden shifted to defendant to prove clear and convincing evidence

2. eliminated control or volition

3. place limitation on role of expert testimony regarding insanity

4. established parity between psychologists and mental health examiners

5. excluded ANY parity defense due to mental health