Forensic Psychology Exam 1

Forensic Psychology definition

Psychology (from any sub-speciality such as clinical, cognitive…) using or applying scientific information and specialized psychological training for the purpose of addressing various legal matters

Do psychologists make legal decisions? What are their roles?

Their role is to assist the legal decision makers. Not judges or juries, but contribute information that those decision makers use to make their decisions. They assist the court in making a decision.

What was Wells (2020) in American Psychology about?

• Psychological science on eyewitness identification and its impact on police practices and policies

• Topic studied extensively since 1970’s; before forensic DNA testing

Cross Race Effect

• More difficult to ID person from race other than one’s own

• From Well’s (2020) study

Wells (2020) in American Psychologist Important Findings

• 70% of DNA exoneration cases involve mistaken eyewitness identification

• In 66% of these cases the wrongly identified person was African American

• “Cross Race Effect”

Similarities between Police Line-Ups & Psychological Experiments

• Start with hypothesis 

• Study design and procedures needed

• Interaction with “participants”, instructions given

• Data collected

• Findings evaluated in light of hypotheses

Wells take on Police Line ups

• “...everything that can go wrong in a psychological experiment can go wrong in a police lineup”

• And these things can impact validity of results!

Memory-As-Trace-Evidence Metaphor

• note parallel between preserving physical crime scene (trace) evidence and evidence based upon memory traces

• both can deteriorate over time and be contaminated based upon how such evidence is “gathered”

Two Major Findings with Relevance for Law Enforcement in Eyewitness Cases

1. The Removal-Without-Replacement Effect

2. The Post-Identification Feedback Effect

What question is a Removal-Without-Replacement study asking?

What happens when you remove the “culprit” from line up?

Removal-Without-Replacement Effect Study Design

• A crime is staged.

• It is viewed separately by witnesses.

• Witnesses are either shown a culprit present (including the individual) or a culprit absent (not including the individual who committed the crime).

• The culprit present has five people and the culprit.

• The culprit absent has just five people.

• All witnesses are told that the culprit may not be in the lineup. 

Removal-Without-Replacement Effect Study Findings

• When culprit is present: 54% identified culprit, 25% identified non-culprit: 21% make no identification

• When culprit is absent: 68% identified one of the non-culprits (rather than make no identification

Removal-Without-Replacement Effect

• When an eyewitness ID’s someone in a line up when a culprit is not present (instead making no ID)

• Effect is stronger when eyewitness memory is weaker.

How to run line-ups while being aware of the removal-without-replacement effect?

• Only 1 suspect should be in a line up and the others should be known innocent fillers. (As you increase # of suspects in line up the chance of mistaken ID’s increase) - Using known innocents reduces mistaken ID’s

• Fillers must be similar to description eyewitness gives of culprit so if culprit is not in line up, errors will be with fillers and not innocent suspects. 

• There should be evidence supporting suspicion of suspect before putting them in a line up. (If so, witnesses will see fewer culprit absent line ups)

• Important to warn eyewitnesses that the culprit may not be in line up

Post-Identification Feedback Effect

• Where a witness inflates or amplifies their judgments after receiving feedback about their accuracy. This creates bias in their recall about their confidence level at time of judgement. 

• People are most likely to believe an eye witness who is confident about their ID (often the case when innocent suspects are convicted).

• Type of “feedback” witness receives after making ID impacts their recall/belief about how confident they were when making ID.

Post-Identification Feedback Effect Study Design

• witness watch a mock crime.

• Mistakes are made from culprit absent line ups

• Randomly either given positive feedback immediately after their identification (ex: “nice job, you really helped us!” “thanks for coming in.”) or no feedback at all. 

Post-Identification Feedback Effect Problem

• Distinguishing between witnesses who are correct and accurately confident vs. those who are wrong but confident due to post ID feedback.

• Social influence plays important role; NOT simply a memory problem

Ways to decrease Post-Identification Feedback Effect in Line Ups

1. Use double blind procedure in line ups (to decrease role of social influence)

2. Ask witnesses for confidence statement at time they make ID (before any “feedback”)

Variables NOT supported by research as being related to recidivism?

• poor victim empathy

• low motivation for treatment

• poor social skills

• low self esteem

• depression

Slemaker (2023) — studying warning behaviors prior to mass shootings

• Studied 25 manifesto’s written by 23 mass shooters (1966-2018)

• Each coded for 8 variables (“pre-attack warning behaviors”) previously identified by Meloy et. al. (2012). 

Might the data (verbal behavior) from Slemaker’s study on mass shooters provide information about psychological status before shooting?

Research indicates mass shootings are planned in advance; do not result from person “snapping”

Manifesto

Written or verbal declaration of the “intentions, motives, or views” of a mass murderer

What are the 8 warning behaviors for mass shootings (from most to least identified)?

First 6 identified in Slemaker’s manifestos

1. Leakage

2. Pathway

3. Identification

4. Fixation

5. Last Resort

6. Novel Aggressive

7. Directly Communicated Threat

8. Energy Burst

Leakage warning behavior

Vague to more obvious communication about planned attack, e.g., giving date, targets, social media posts, You-Tube… No intervention despite this information

Pathway Warning Behavior

• (>50%)

• Behaviors suggesting “research, planning, preparation or implementation” of mass shooting,

• e.g., stockpiling weapons, IDing locations & targets, saving money for attack, thoughts about “best day”, revenge common theme.

Identification Warning Behavior

• (about 50%) Person identifies with prior mass shooters, grandiose sense of power to correct “wrongs” in others/society, fascination with law enforcement and military, belief that they have been mistreated and only “solution” is attack, e.g., imitating behavior of prior shooters such as naming guns, making recordings, wearing similar clothing, some looking for fame

Fixation Warning Behavior

• Behavior indicating “increasing pathological preoccupation with a person or cause”

• hatred & rants about particular political or controversial movements or personal events such as being fired from job,

• fixation on correcting “wrongs”, getting revenge,

• bothered by injustice where no one is held responsible.

Last Resort Warning Behavior

• View that there is no option but attack, no way out,

• nothing else would be effective,

• belief that shooters “cause” would get no attention without this act

Novel Aggressive Warning Behavior

• (<20%) Aggressive behavior “test run” (not related to target), usually practicing at gun range, 1 shooter killed family dog to “test” himself

Directly Communicated Threat

• (0%) Written or verbal statement to law enforcement or target that attack will occur.

Energy Burst Warning Behavior

• (0% but most difficult to determine) Involves uptick in activity associated with planned attack during days/weeks before shooting. Would need information about person’s activity level baseline to determine.

How are knowing these warning behaviors useful?

• These warning behaviors could help ID mass shooters prior to attacks (with information used in way suicide risk factors are used)

• Warning behaviors should be shared with general public in order to have broader usefulness

• Anonymous tip lines can be used to communicate threats of mass shootings to authorities (>50% of public middle and high schools have these in place).

• Warning behaviors cannot be used for “predictions” of future attacks but can be used to intervene and indicate need for additional risk assessment (TBD later in semester)

Last Resort Warning Behavior in Threat Assessment

• Last Resort Warning Behavior: actions related to perception of no other choice, all else has failed

• Also present: Urgency to act; limited time window

• Note use of last resort commentary by political leaders who motivate followers to take action

  • E.g., “Other side poses existential threat that MUST be stopped NOW” (note time imperative)

• Violence here is characterized as defensive (rather than offensive), lowering need to view self as “violent person”

Examples of last resort thinking and behaviors

• Nidal Malik Hasan (2009- Ft. Hood Texas): Mass shooting on a military base. End of life planning and farewell messaging. 

• Anders Breivik (2011-Norway): Mass shooting at a youth camp. Time imperative and violent action imperative.

What does last resort thinking result from?

• can result from some type of destabilizing event, e.g., personal/material loss, rhetoric appealing for violence, or something unique to a specific individual. 

• 60% of targeted attackers show some type of last resort warning behavior. 

What 2 dimensions should be considered for threat assessments when assessing for Last Resort Thinking?

• Internal-External (is triggering event internal or external to person)

• Past-Future (has event already occurred or expected in future).

Example of Internal-External and Past-Future Dimensions

Eg., Ft. Hood: Mass murder when about to be deployed to Afghanistan (future) war along with belief that war was being waged against “Taliban Brothers” (external)

Why is it important to know triggers for LR thinking?

• Knowing the type of trigger(s) present can inform strategies for intervention

• “Last resort thinking frames a call to action. The victims become the soldiers”

Related concept to LR thinking?

Apocalypticism – belief that end of world is imminent with implication of urgency for extreme action. Predicted event may be religious, disease, technological, political …

Apocalypticism

belief that end of world is imminent with implication of urgency for extreme action. Predicted event may be religious, disease, technological, political …

Risk Factors for LR thinking

• Mental disorders - especially those with thinking and/or mood impairment.

• Depression — risk factor for suicide and correlated with violence towards others.

• Depression may involve decreased cognitive flexibility, black-white thinking, sense of hopelessness.

• Delusions or Extreme Overvalued Beliefs

Warning behaviors most associated with targeted violence?

• Pathway identification

• Last Resort

How to practically consider last resort warning behaviors?

• Carefully consider in violence risk assessments

• Should lead to immediate action (given imminent threat of violence)

Differences between psychology vs. law

• Psychology: Descriptive – describes human behavior (how people act), Nomothetic – general theories with broad application (patterns present in large groups of people), Probabilistic – how likely an event is to occur beyond chance, Empirical focus  (based on empirical evidence)

• Law: Prescriptive – prescribes how people should act, Idiographic – primary focus on facts specific to individual case, Definitive – guilty or not guilty; testimony allowed or not allowed; Competent or Not Competent to Stand Trial, Authoritative focus

Characteristics of Psychology

• Descriptive – describes human behavior (how people act)

• Nomothetic – general theories with broad application (patterns present in large groups of people)

• Probabilistic – how likely an event is to occur beyond chance

• Empirical focus  (based on empirical evidence)

Characteristics of Law

• Prescriptive – prescribes how people should act

• Idiographic – primary focus on facts specific to individual case

•  Definitive – guilty or not guilty; testimony allowed or not allowed; Competent or Not Competent to Stand Trial

•  Authoritative focus

Therapeutic vs Forensic Assessment: Similarities and Differences

• Therapeutic: Performed for the purpose of helping a client/patient (e.g., clarifying diagnosis to assist with treatment selection)

• Forensic: Performed to assist court regarding a legal issue or question (e.g., is defendant competent to stand trial?)

• There is overlap between assessment methods (e.g., Clinical interview; psychological testing; 3rd party information; record review)

• Important differences exist regarding the weight given to such strategies and the ways in which they are used in forensic work.

Therapeutic assessment

Performed for the purpose of helping a client/patient (e.g., clarifying diagnosis to assist with treatment selection)

Forensic Assessment

Performed to assist court regarding a legal issue or question (e.g., is defendant competent to stand trial?)

Scope of Assessments

• Clinical/therapeutic assessment

• Forensic evaluation

Clinical/therapeutic Scope of Assessment

• tends to address broad concerns such as establishing diagnosis, describing personality patterns, and determining treatment options

Forensic Evaluation

•  tend to be more narrow (e.g., Is person competent to make a will?; Will person re-offend within next 5 years?) with clinical issues less of a focus

Two different viewpoints for the role of examinee

therapeutic work and forensic assessments

Therapeutic work

attempts to determine the way problems are perceived and understood by examinee as a basis for intervention (with some concerns about accuracy of information)

Forensic Assessments

greatly emphasize objectivity and accuracy of information; examinee viewpoint less critical

who is the “client” in forensic cases/assessments?

• The “client” in forensic cases often is not the examinee; rather, a court, attorney, employer… asking for information about examinee

• Such information comes from multiple sources (even some not preferred by examinee) and viewpoints which may differ from examinee’s. 

How does Autonomy/Confidentiality work in forensic assessments?

• Typically client consent required for disclosure of information with traditional clinical assessment.

• Courts and attorneys may provide and obtain information which forensic examinee’s might wish not to disclose (e.g., absence of confidentiality in court ordered custody exam).

Validity and intentional distortion in therapeutic vs forensic assessment

• Therapeutic assessment guided by working alliance and collaboration to address client needs - Intentional distortion less likely

• Intentional distortion much greater concern in forensic assessment.

what is the role of self report in therapeutic vs forensic assessment?

• Potentially useful even if distorted in therapeutic assessment

• Cautiously interpreted in forensic assessment given focus on factual accuracy

Relationship with examiner in forensic vs therapeutic assessment

• Therapeutic relationship required empathic stance, trust, with provider in “helping role”

• Forensic examiner has goal of assisting legal decision-maker, not providing treatment; stance may be more detached & even confrontational at times

Primary purpose of forensic assessment

• To help “legal decision-makers” (e.g., judge, jury) arrive at legal decisions (Ogloff & Douglas, 2013)

• Thus, a forensic psych evaluation must consider and address legal criteria and standards 

• The issues to be assessed are determined primarily by the law (vs other types of evaluations)

• Forensic psychologist must be familiar with relevant legal standards in order to assist legal decision makers. 

“Competent to Stand Trial” (CST) Example for Forensic Assessment

• If question is whether person is “Competent to Stand Trial” (CST)...

• Psychologist must understand how CST is defined by law before attempting to evaluate a defendant for this capacity

• Same with Insanity, Extreme Emotional Disturbance, Terminating Parental Rights

Non-credible responding

• Essential to evaluate in forensic cases

• Known to occur frequently (e.g., up to 40% of the time in cases of mild TBI with legal case per Suhr (2015). 

Deception Definition

• Very common everyday event

• Deliberate attempt to create belief in another that you know is untrue

Depaulo et a., 1996 Study (Deception)

• Subjects kept diary on how often they engaged in deception over a week

• They admitted lying in 1 out of 4 social interactions and to over 30% of people they interacted with

Frequency of lies in social interactions

• Present in 14% of e-mails

• 27% of face to face interactions

• 37% of phone conversations

• Most lies not serious and serve a social purpose (not hurting another; avoiding negative social consequences)

Serious lies

(e.g., to gain something or avoid punishment) involve higher stakes & often greater consequences (e.g., Dahmer)

How effective are we at detecting deception?

• Studied for 60+ years 

• General finding: Not very good

Meta-Analysis for how good we are at detecting deception, results?

• 206 studies with 25,000 “Lie-Truth Judgments”) (Bond & DePaulo, 2006)

• Overall accuracy 54% (For truth – 61%; For lies – 47%)

Reasons why people are bad at detecting deception?

• Biased tendencies to view others as honest even when we are told the frequency (base rate) of deception in a lie-detecting task

• People hold distorted views about accuracy of their judgments. Correlation between one’s confidence about detecting deception and actual accuracy in doing so extremely low (near zero)!

Are “Professional Lie Catchers (police, detectives, security personnel) good at detecting deception?

• Overestimate capacity to detect deception

• In fact, while more confident than general public, tend not to outperform general public

• Further, greater levels of experience in this role leads to higher levels of overcondidence!

• As one becomes more convinced in their DD ability, often there is decreased openness to information inconsistent with one’s position

Why is it important to know about deception?

How we gather information; What information we gather; and How we integrate it

Cues used to detect deception

• Similar cues used by professionals & laypeople; Many cues based in stereotypes

• E.g., avoiding eye contact, touching body, moving feet/;egs, changing posture frequently, shrugging, talking fast

• Most common cue people use to determine presence of lying internationally is avoiding eye countact (AEG)

Similar cues used by professional lie catchers

• Story consistency

• Story length

• Gaze Aversion

• Fidgeting 

• Research does not find cues such as averting eye gaze and fidgeting to be reliable indicators of deception (in laboratory studies)

Reid Technique

3 step strategy widely taught and used by criminal justice system to detect deception. Not well supported by research

1. Factual Analysis

2. Behavioral Analysis Interview

3. Assumption

• If suspect is determined to be good fit, interrogation follows

• Some research shows those trained with this are less accurate but more confident than those not trained in using method 

What are some behavior indicators of deception?

• verbal & nonverbal signs of increased tension and nervousness

• Increased vocal pitch (higher tone)

• More pupil dilation

• Increased arousal (anxious about detection or feeling conflicted?)

• Liars may attempt to deliberately control excessive movements d/t concerns about how it might appear (aka “The attempted control theory” of deception - Vrij, 2008)

• less use of hand/arm “illustrators”

• less direct & straightforward

• Spend less time talking

• Provide fewer details which are difficult to keep straight

• tend to give same number of details regardless of time from event (which is inconsistent with normal memory decay)

• Longer delays before speaking, more pauses where nothing is said, more hesitations in speech

• less compelling stories - make less sense, less logical, less believable

• Appear less engaged in their stories (fewer hand gestures, inconsistencies in tone of voice)

• More frequent use of tentative words (maybe, perhaps…) and fewer first person pronouns in stories (as if creating psychological distance from lies)

Variables that impact detecting deception

• Motivation of liar

• Kind of lie being told

• If motivation/incentive is present to successfully deceive (e.g., obtaining money for disability),

• Lies associated with offenses (e.g., cheating, stealing) vs. those not related to “transgressions” (lying about age)

• Stronger motivation to lie involves stronger behavioral cues of deception, especially if a transgression is involved (some kind of offense)

• Preparation—Planned deception easier to pull off than spontaneous lying (more behavioral signs) – importance of unexpected questions

  • E.g., Parole hearings

General findings through early 2000’s on deception

• Lying occurs frequently

• Behavioral indicators often subtle and inconsistently present

• People (professionals included) are not good at detecting lies

• People (& especially those working in lie-catching business) overestimate their capacity to do this

More recent research on deception includes…

• Attempts made to move outside the laboratory and frequently used college student samples

• Important to study deception in real life settings where personal stakes are higher than in laboratory

• Note creative research designs 

Brinke and Porter (2012) Study on Deception

• Studied people asking for help finding missing or murdered loved ones

• Carefully studied speech, body language, emotional & facial expressions during high stakes public appeals

• “Truth” (about innocence of person making appeal) determined as follows:

  • Considered deceptive if strong evidence linked them to event (e.g., DNA evidence; possession of murder weapon; video evidence, leading police to victim’s body)

  • About 50% of appeals made by persons ultimately convicted of killing missing person; 50% by innocent, distressed family member

• Deceptive appeals were associated with:

  • Unsuccessful attempts to portray sadness; “leakage” of happiness & disgust; use of fewer words & more tentative word use

What were honest appeals marked by in the Brinke & Porter Study on deception?

• More references to emotional or behavioral norms (e.g., “How could anyone do this?”; “Any parent knows exactly how I feel”)

• More expressions of hope about locating missing person

• Positive emotion toward missing relative

• Expressions having to do with concern and/or pain

• While not completely in line with laboratory findings (e.g., gaze aversion finding), such research suggests real life & higher stakes situations may lead to more obvious behavioral deception cues)

Cognitive Approach to Lie Detection (cognitive load)

• Based on the position that lying is more cognitively demanding than truth telling- requires suppression of truth, need to monitor & control one’s behavior to appear honest; remaining aware of interviewer reactions… Multiple real time adjustments needed

• Approach involves increasing cognitive demands (load) during an interview making successful deception even more difficult

Cognitive approach to lie detection

• Based on the position that lying is more cognitively demanding than truth telling- requires suppression of truth, need to monitor & control one’s behavior to appear honest; remaining aware of interviewer reactions… Multiple real time adjustments needed

• Approach involves increasing cognitive demands (load) during an interview making successful deception even more difficult

Approaches to lie detection

• Asking for person to give “story” in reverse order

• Ask person to maintain eye contact throughout interview

• Asking questions that are unexpected (Note: Liars found to give less detail to unexpected questions and much more to anticipated questions)

Cognitive bias and legal decision making

• Biased ways of gathering, analyzing, interpreting, & integrating information can lead to decision errors

• Contextual Information can contribute to biased decision making (e.g., “contextual bias”; “expectancy effects”) – impacts how evidence is evaluated and integrated

Murrie et al. (2013) "Adversarial Allegiance Bias”

• A group of psychologists took a free class training to use the PCL (Psychopathy Checklist)

• Core features of a psychopath: absence of guilt/remorse, lack of empathy, highly impulsive, aggressive, self-focused, highly manipulative

• All psychologists had to agree to help the teachers out and review a few cases after learning to use the PCL (paid to evaluate the cases) – all given the same records

• Half of the group were told that they were reviewing this case for the prosecution; the other half were told that they would be doing it for the defense attorney (cases exactly the same)

• Findings suggested adversarial allegiance bias – if the reviewers thought they were helping the prosecution, they found more psychopathy. If they thought they were working for the defense they found less psychopathy. 

• Tendency to be swayed by the context of the case 

Cognitive Bias and Evidence Integration

• Evidence may be combined in biased ways – one reason being tendency to put pieces of evidence together in ways that produce logical/coherent narratives

• As a result, individual pieces of data can become “lost” in the overall narrative, i.e., sense that there is a story that holds together and “fits” can result in overconfidence in one’s decision

• Happens even when value of each piece of evidence is highlighted for evaluator

Problem: Final decisions can be biased even when evaluating individual pieces of evidence in a non-biased way. The bias enters as part of evidence integration

Coherence-Based Model

• States evaluation of evidence leads to conclusions and these impact evaluation of additional evidence (e.g., evidence supporting narrative viewed as stronger)

• Model suggests an ongoing, dynamic process of evidence evaluation focused on maximizing coherence (a “best fit of sorts”)

• Likely occurs automatically

• Explains how adding additional evidence can actually increase bias

• The bias essentially arises from the integration process itself. Initially reviewed evidence can act as context

• Helps explain why people are often very confident about their decisions even after reviewing and integrating ambiguous and contradictory information. The process leads to sense of coherence based on biased integration

Potential solutions to cognitive biases

• To decrease bias in evidence integration, need to interfere with “coherence process”

  • E.g., Having evaluators consider reasons why their judgments may be inaccurate (e.g., consider why opposite or alternative view may be accurate)

• Simply telling people not to be biased is not effective.

• Increasing depth of cognitive processing during evidence integration (encouraging extra cognitive effort in thinking about decision)

• Actively searching for information disconfirming initial conclusions

• Keeping at least 2 competing hypotheses in mind

• Seeking consultation/feedback from objective colleagues.

• Keeping decision maker “blind” to potentially biasing information where possible 

Self-Inspection

(Introspection)

Does statement fit with self view; ways person feels, acts, thinks about self

Retrospective memory

memory searched to determine whether experiences described by item have occurred in their past

Deliberate self presentation

consideration of how one wants to present self given the circumstances of evaluation

Honest responding

sincere attempt to provide accurate responses

Malingering

• intentional fabrication or severe exaggeration of psychological and/or physical symptoms for the purpose of receiving some type of significant external gain or benefit.

• Ex: getting out of work/class by pretending you’re sick

Defensive responding

• denial or minimization of psychological or physical symptoms or problem areas.

  • E.g., court-ordered treatment and you downplay your psychological symptoms to get through the sessions sooner

  • Someone that needs to get psychological clearance for a job and downplays any issues they might have to get the job

Irrelevant or Inconsistent Responding

•  responses are not relevant to the questions asked; lack of engagement in the exam; random responding

Hybrid responding

• a combination of prior responding styles (e.g., sexual offenders who openly responds to questions about psychopathology but greatly minimizes sexual history)

Suhr (2015) - Non-Credible Responding

• most patients will engage in some sort of deception (consciously or unconsciously) by either exaggerating, minimizing, distorting, or omitting parts of their story at one time or another

• Known to occur frequently (e.g., up to 40% of the time in cases of mild TBI with a legal case)

  • In up to 28% of people with depression being evaluated in a forensic setting

• Known to occur even when no obvious financial benefit is present

Performance Validity Measures

• Used to detect the presence of poor effort or intentional failure on cognitive testing

  • E.g., forced choice “memory test” with two response options (1 correct; 1 incorrect); expect 50% accuracy with pure guessing; Deliberate failure possible with accuracy <50%

• Task may be presented or “packaged” as complicated but norms revealed task is easily done by most all examinees (normal & clinical groups)

  • E.g., coin test

  • The person sits across from the therapist, who has them watch as the therapist moves the coin from hand to hand. Then, the client closes their eyes and counts down by threes, with the expectation of 100% accuracy.

• Might also compare test performance with day-to-day functioning

Symptom Validity Measures

• Assess for symptom exaggeration (malingering); defensiveness, inconsistency; carelessness on a psychiatric test

  • Whether the person would be reporting more or fewer symptoms than based on norms

• Careful consideration of context needed

• Assessed via interview; observation; and instruments (such as MMPI-3)

• “Preposterous” responses might also indicate invalid responding

  • responses that are very strange and can’t be true

  • “When people talk to you, does it sometimes seem like most of their words are coming out backwards”?

• Defensiveness: denying behaviors or problems typically acknowledged by most people

  • “Occasionally I have a bad day” (T/F)

  • “I have never lost my temper” (T/F)