Psychology & the Criminal Justice System 2025

Chapter 1 - Introduction to Psychology

Psychology

• Scientific study of behaviour.

• Scientific study of mental processes.

• A science since it uses scientific method.

The 4 goals of psychology:

1. Description

2. Explanation

3. Prediction

4. Influence

Description:

• Make notes about behaviours or situations observed

• Observations = data

• Important in early stages of research

Explanation:

• Requires understanding of conditions

• Understand causes of behaviour

• Understand causes of mental processes

To describe Behaviour

• >24 yrs. of age

• Illegal activities - break and enter, vandalism, drug offences, prostitution, assault

To explain behaviour

1. Poverty

2. Divorce

3. Lack of supervision

4. Rebellion

5. need for attention

6. Abusive, neglectful, drug addicted, criminal parents

7. Peer pressure

8. High crime neighbourhoods

Prediction

• Researchers can specify conditions under which behaviour or event is likely to occur

• Understand likelihood of occurrence

• Predict likelihood of occurrence

Influence

• Apply a principle to prevent unwanted occurrences (i.e., MADD, making drinking and driving socially unacceptable)

• Change a condition to prevent unwanted occurrences (i.e., Security cameras)

• Bring about desired outcomes

Scientific Theory: Hypothesis

• Theory = a general principle that explains how a number of separate facts are related

• It attempts to explain why something happens

• It is based on evidence

• It is falsifiable

Basic Research

• Seeks new knowledge

• Explores new topics of understanding

• Advances scientific understanding

• Describe explain predict but not influence

• Examples of research topics:

  • Nature of memory

  • Brain function

  • Motivation

  • Emotional expression

  • Causes of mental disorders

Applied Research

• Goals: Focus on Influence

• Applying research to life

• Solving practical problems

• Improving quality of life

• Examples of research topics:

  • Methods to improve memory

  • Methods to improve motivation

  • Ways to decrease stress

  • Therapies to treat mental disorders

Applied Research Hypothesis

1. Classroom attendance improves student grades

2. Watching TV violence increases aggressive behaviour in children

3. Longer tougher sentences reduce crime rates

Scientific Method

Descriptive Research Methods

• naturalistic Observation

• Laboratory Observation

• Case Study

• Survey

• Correlation

Naturalistic Observation

• Observe behaviour in natural setting

• Record behaviour in natural setting

• No attempt to influence or control behaviour

• Mall Observations

• Advantage

  • Study behaviour in normal settings

• Disadvantages

  • Must wait for events to occur

  • Observer bias can distort observations (see what we want to see)

Laboratory Observation

• Advantages

  • More control over conditions

  • More precise equipment to measure responses

• Disadvantages

  • Less spontaneity of behaviour

  • Lab designed for observation

Case Study

• One or few participants

• In-depth study: observation, interviews, psychological testing

• Study uncommon psychological or physiological disorders, brain injury.

• Cannot establish cause of behaviours

Survey

• Advantages

  • Information about attitudes, beliefs, experiences, behaviours

  • Can use large numbers of people

  • Can show attitude changes over time

• Disadvantages

  • Respondents may provide inaccurate information

Correlational Method

• Used to determine degree of relationship (correlation) between two characteristics, events, or behaviours

• Useful in making predictions

• Cannot determine cause

• Example class attendance and grades

Correlation Does Not Equal Cause

Positive Correlation

• Occurs when 2 variables are related and when both move in the same direction

• Examples

  1. Number of cigarettes smoked and the risk of lung cancer

  2. Amount of calories consumed and body weight

  3. Income and years of education

  4. Happiness and helpfulness

Negative Correlation

• Occurs when 2 variables are related and when one increases the other decreases

• Examples

  1. Hours per week of exercise and risk of heart disease

  2. Amount of education and years spent in jail

  3. Hours/week watching TV school grades

  4. Amount of alcohol consumed and physical coordination

Zero Correlation

• Examples

  1. Hair loss and exercise

  2. Hair colour and risk or heart disease

Correlation

Correlation Coefficient

• Number between -1 and +1, which indicates the strength of the relationship

• The closer the coefficient is to -1 or +1, the stronger the relationship

Hypothesis

• Experiments tests hypotheses

• Hypothesis = prediction about relationship between two or more variables

• Variable = condition or factor manipulated, controlled, measured

Experimental Variables

• Independent Variable (IV)

  • Manipulated to determine if causing change in behaviour or condition

• Dependent Variable (DV)

  • Measured at end of experiment

  • Varies as IV(s) manipulated

Experimental Method

• Participants randomly assigned to groups

• Control all conditions other than IV’s

• IV’s manipulated to determine effect on behaviour measured

• Behaviour measures = DV

• Can determine cause-effect

Experimental and Control Groups

• Experimental Group

  • Participants exposed to IV

• Control Group

  • Exposed to same experimental environment

  • Not given IV (treatment)

Experiment

1. Hypothesis: Sophisticated study strategies improve student grades

2. Independent variable: Variable manipulated by the experimenter. I.e., Study Strategies

   • Repetition - read info. - control group

   • Imagery - generate mental picture

   • Ask self questions - elaborative interrogation

3. Dependant variable: Variable measured by the experimenter. I.e., Memory for info (Grade on test)

Study Strategies and Memory Performance

Potential Problems in Experimental Research

• Selection Bias

• Placebo Effect

• Experimenter Bias

Selection Bias

• Participants assigned to groups

• Systemic differences among groups present at beginning of experiment

• Difference at end of experiment may be due to pre-existing differences in groups

Placebo Effect

• Response to treatment due to expectations instead of treatment

• Improvement from power of suggestion, called ‘placebo effect’

• Use control group test whether results due to treatment or placebo effect

• Big bang

Experimenter Bias

• Preconceived notions or expectations cause researchers to find what they expect to find

• Researchers can influence participants’ behaviour

• Expectations can influence interpretation of results

Psychological Tests

• Reliability

  • Consistency in what is measured

  • Same score time after time if same person tested and retested

• Validity

  • Test measures what it is intended to measure

Ethics in Research

• Canadian Psychological Association

  • Participation must be voluntary

  • Respect for confidentiality

  • Participants may withdraw at any time

  • Must be debriefed about full purpose of study and implications

Use of Animals in Research

• Study processes similar to humans

• More control over animal subjects

• Wider range of medical and other manipulations can be used

• Can study lifespan and many generations in some species

• Cheaper, convenient for research

Animals in Research

• Bound by Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists

• Guidelines of Canadian Council on Animal Care

• Animal research supported only when reasonable expectation that valuable knowledge will be obtained

Historical Perspectives

• Wilhelm Wundt

• Structuralism

• Functionalism

• Gestalt

• Behaviouralism

• Psycho analysis (Freud)

• Humanistic

• Cognitive

Current Perspectives

• Biological

• Evolutionary

• Sociocultural

Biological Perspective Study

• Structures of brain and central nervous system

• Functioning or neurons

• Delicate balance of neurotransmitters and hormones

• Impact of genes

Evolutionary Perspective

• Humans adapted through evolution.

• Study inherited tendencies, dispositions, behaviours:

  • Aggression

  • Helping behaviour

  • Danger avoidance

  • Food preferences

Sociocultural Perspective

• A school of psychology

• Studies social and cultural influences on human behaviour

• Stresses importance of understanding those influences when we interpret behaviour of others

Areas of Specialization

• Clinical Psychology

• Counselling Psychology

• School and Educational Psychology

• Applied Social Psychology

• Forensic Psychology

• Health Psychology

• Sport Psychology

• Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Where Psychologists Work

Chapter 2 - Forensic Psychology

Forensic Psychology

• A field of psychology that deals with all aspects of human behaviour as it relates to the law or legal system

• Forensic Psychology is all around us

  • Profiling serial killers

  • Determining someone’s sanity

Other Forensic Sciences

• Forensic Anthropology

• Forensic Linguistics

• Forensic Chemistry

• Forensic Pathology (cause/effects disease)

• Forensic Entomology (study of insects)

• Forensic Psychiatry (medical doctors)

History of Forensic Psychology

• 1893 First experiments by Cattell that called into question the reliability of eyewitness testimony.

• Alfred Binet studies eyewitness testimony and suggestibility in children and finds that free recall presents the most accurate results.

• Stern’s “reality experiment” resulted in evidence that a persons “emotional arousal” or stress that affects recall.

Early Court Cases in Europe

• Von Schrenck-Notzing (1896)

  • Pre-trial press can result in retroactive memory falsification (what was observed versus what was heard)

• Varendonck (1911)

  • Children can provide inaccurate testimony due to suggestive questioning techniques

Forensic Psychology in North America

• On the Witness Stand, published by Munsterberg (1908 father of forensic psych)

  • Discusses the role of psychology in the legal system

  • Pushes psychology into diverse areas of the criminal justice system, including prisons and police forces

Landmark U.S Court Cases

• State v. Driver (1921)

• Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

• Jenkins v. United States (1962)

State v. Driver (1921)

• First court case in the U.S. where expert testimony is provided by a psychologist

  • Represented a partial victory for psychology in that the court accepts only a portion of the psychologist’s testimony

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

• The U.S. Supreme Court, for the first time, refers to psychological research in their ruling on a case

  • The case dealt with the constitutionality of school segregation and the research examined how discrimination affects personality development

  • Helped to validate psychology as a science

Jenkins v. United States (1962)

• The court rules that psychologists are sometimes qualified to give expert testimony on the issue of mental disease

  • Helped to increase the extent to which psychologists can contribute to legal proceedings

Theories of Crime

• Biological

• Sociological

• Psychological

A Legitimate Field of Psychology

• High quality textbooks

• Academic journals

• Professional associations

• Training opportunities

• Recognition as a specialty discipline

Biological - William Sheldon

• William Sheldon 1940 Somatotyping the classification of human beings into body types according to build to determine correlates to behaviour.

Ectomorph

Associated personality traits:

• Self-conscious

• Preference for privacy

• Introverted

• Inhibited

• Artistic

• Mentally intense

• Emotionally restrained

Endomorph

Endomorphic Body Type:

• Soft body

• Underdeveloped muscles

• Round shaped

• Over-developed digestive system

Associated personality traits:

• Love of food

• Tolerant

• Evenness of emotions

• Ghumored

• Relaxed

• Need for affection

Mesomorph

Mesomorphic Body Type:

• Hard, muscular body

• Rectangular shaped

• Thick skin

• Upright posture

Associated personality traits:

• Adventurous

• Desire for power and dominance

• Courageous

• Indifference to what others think or want

• Assertive, bold

• Zest for physical activity

• Competitive

Biological

XYY Chromosome

• 1965 Patricia Jacobs studies inmates and finds that males with XYY chromosomes are more often violent offenders

• Also over-represented in mental institutions and prisons

• Often lower than average intelligence

• 1969 used successfully as a defence to murder charge in Australia. Attempted as a defence for serial killer in USA defence

Psychological Theories

Gottfredson and Hirschi

• Argued that low self control internalized in early life in the presence of criminal opportunities explains a persons propensity to commit crime.

Sociological Theories

Beckers Labelling Theory

Sociological

Merton’s Strain Theory

• Strain exists in groups that are blocked from achieving goals due to economic and other forces

• According to Merton When goals are blocked there are five responses:

  1. Conformity

  2. Innovation

  3. Ritualism (Reject/alter goals)

  4. Retreatism (Drop-out)

  5. Rebellion (Revolutionaries)

• Only conformity is considered correct by society

Roles of a Forensic Psychologist

Clinical Forensic Psychologist

• Psychologists who are broadly concerned with assessment and treatment of mental health issues as they pertain to the law or legal system

Examples of what they do:

• Carry out personnel selection for law enforcement jobs

• Conducting critical incident stress debriefing with Police officers

• Facilitating treatment programs for offenders

• Risk assessment for offender release

Experimental Forensic Psychologist

• Psychologists who are broadly concerned with study of human behaviour as it relates to the law or legal system.

What they do:

• Experiment to examine the effectiveness of risk assessment strategies

• Determine what factors influence jury decision making

• Develop and test ways to conduct better eyewitness lineups

• Evaluate treatment programs

Legal Scholar

• Analyze mental health law and policy and act as consultant regarding the writing of legislation

Relationships Between Psychology and Law

Psychology and the Law

• The use of psychology to study the operation of the legal system (reliability of eyewitnesses?)

Psychology in the Law

• The use of psychology within the legal system as it currently operates (use of psych knowledge to prep interrogation strategy)

Psychology of the Law

• The use of psychology to study the law itself (What is the importance of discretion in Judges decisions, how much discretion should they have?)

Functions of an Expert Witness

Two primary function:

• Aid in understanding a particular issue relevant to the case

• Provide an opinion

This contrasts with regular witnesses who can only testify about what they have directly observed

Challenges of Providing Expert Testimony

• Providing effective testimony to the courts is difficult because of differences that exist between the fields of psychology and law

Differences Between Psychology and Law

Chapter 3 - State of consciousness

Consciousness

• Continuous stream of thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions we are aware of moment to moment

Altered States of Consciousness

• Mental states other than ordinary waking consciousness

• Sleep, meditation, hypnosis, or drug induced state.

Alcohol/wine as a depressant will help me sleep better

• Some people feel that alcohol is a sleep aid on its own. However, while alcohol may calm you and speed the onset of sleep, it actually increases the number of times you awaken during the night.

Prescription sleep aids are not safe and may be addictive or cause dependency

• When taken as prescribed, sleep aids can safely and effectively treat insomnia. There is a lower risk for dependency and tolerance with the newer prescription sleep aids compared to traditional benzodiazepines. People with a history of addiction, or alcohol and drug abuse, are at an increased risk of dependence from sleep aids.

Insomnia is not a serious medical condition and has no consequences

• Insomnia can be serious medical condition characterized by difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep (waking up often during the night and having trouble going back to sleep), waking up too early in the morning. or feeling tired upon waking. Several consequences of insomnia are decreased work performance, depression or mood changes and increased risk or automotive crashes.

Insomnia is nearly twice as common in women than men

• Men and women are affected the same way by insomnia.

Exercising before bed will make me tired, and help me sleep

• Sleep experts ave cautioned people to avoid strenuous exercise right before sleep and even up to three hours before bedtime. That’s because exercise has an alerting effect and raises your body temperature. This ride leads to a corresponding fall in temperature five to six hours later, which makes sleep easier then. If you’ve been exercising close to bedtime and having trouble falling or staying asleep, try to arrange your workout earlier in the day.

Watching TV in my bedroom and working on my laptop in bed helps me wind down and fall asleep

• Doing work, watching TV and using the computer, both close to bedtime and especially in the bedroom, hinder quality sleep. Violent shows, news reports and stories before bedtime can be agitating. The sleep environment should be used only for sleep.

Circadian Rhythms

• Controlled by the train

• Within each 24 hour period, high to low points of bodily functions.

• Examples: appetite, energy alertness, sleepiness, elimination, temperature, secretion of hormones, blood pressure, heart rate.

Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN)

• Tiny piece of brain tissue

• Located in hypothalamus

• Acts as biological clock

• Controls Circadian Rhythms

• Acts on centre of brain by signalling pineal gland

• Responds to the amount of light

• Secretes Melatonin

Jetlag

• Biological clock synchronized with usual time zone, not new time zone.

• Difficult to sleep when biological clock tells you wake up, feel alert.

• Chronic jet lag can produce memory deficits that may be permanent.

Shift Work

• Rotating shifts and irregular schedules most common types of shift work

• 2.3 million full-time Canadian workers.

• Disruption in rhythms of bodily functions can cause variety of physical and psychological problems

NREM Sleep

• No rapid eye movements (NREM)

• Heart rate and respiration slow & regular

• Little bodily movement

• Blood pressure, brain activity at lowest points of 24 hour period

• Four Stages: Stage 1 is lightest sleep; Stage 4 is deepest

How researchers study sleeping participants

• Researchers study participants in a sleep laboratory or sleep clinic by taping electrodes to the participant’s head to monitor brainwave activity, eye movements, and muscle tension.

During REM Sleep

• REM = “Rapid eye movement” sleep

• 20-25 percent of adult sleep

• Intense brain activity

• Most dreaming occurs

• Blood pressure rises

• heart rate, respiration faster and irregular

• Brain temperature increases

• Large muscles of body (arms, legs, trunk) become paralyzed

Sleep Cycles

• Sleep cycles last about 90 minutes.

• Stage 1

  • Few minutes of light sleep

• Stage 2

  • 50% of sleep occurs; somewhat deeper than Stage 1

• Stage 3

  • Beginning of deep sleep

  • Brain activity slows

• Stage 4

  • Deepest sleep, lasts 40 minutes

• After Stage 4 sleep, brain activity increases, delta waves begin to disappear.

• Back through Stages 3 and 2.

• Then enter first REM period; lasts 10 to 15 minutes.

• After REM period, first cycle of sleep is complete

• Go directly from REM sleep into Stage 2 sleep

• Begin again

Brainwave Patterns with Different Stages of Sleep

• By monitoring brainwave activity with the EEG throughout a night’s sleep, researchers have identified the brainwave patterns associated with different stages of sleep. As sleepers progress through the four NREM stages, the brainwave pattern changes from faster, low-voltage waves in Stages 1 and 2 to the slower, larger delta waves in Stages 3 and 4. Notice that the brainwave activity during REM sleep is similar to that of the subject when awake.

Age and Sleep

• Infants and Young Children

  • Longest sleep time

  • Highest percentage of REM and deep sleep

• Middle Childhood

  • Fall asleep easily, sleep 8.5 to 9 hrs; awake, alert during day.

• Teenagers

  • Average 7.6 hours sleep

  • Older teens less than 7 hour

  • Most need 2 more hours to be alert

Typical Composition of Sleep Cycles for Young Adults

• A typical night’s sleep for young adults consists of about five sleep cycles of about 90 minutes each. Stage 4 sleep occurs during the first two sleep cycles. people spend progressively more time in REM sleep with each succeeding 90-minute cycle.

Adults and Sleep

• During aging, quality and quantity of sleep decreases

• Worse sleep over 75 years old

• More difficulty falling asleep, have lighter sleep

• Average 6.5 hours of sleep

• Percentage of REM sleep same

Larks and Owls

Larks (25% of people)

• Body temperature rises until 7:30pm

• Early to bed

• More difficulty with night shifts

Owls (25% of people)

• Body temperature rises gradually through the day, drops later in evenings

Dreams

REM Rebound

• Increased amount of REM sleep

• Occurs after REM deprivation

• Often associated wth unpleasant dreams, nightmares

REM Dreams

• Dream-like. story-like quality; vivid, visual, emotional.

• Continuous during each REM period.

NREM Dreams

• Mental activity during NREM sleep.

• More thought-like in quality.

Anticipation Dream?

• 60%

Prophetic Dream?

• 63%

Recurring dream?

• 74%

Dreaming about someone who has died?

• 51%

Lucid Dreaming?

• 46%

Do you believe dreams have meaning?

• 67%

Do you regularly remember dreams?

• 36%

Do you experience intense emotions in your dreams?

• 50%

Common Dream Themes

Parasomnias

• Sleep disturbances in which behaviours that normally only happen during wakefulness happen during sleep.

Somnambulism

• Sleepwalking occurs during partial arousal from Stage 4 sleep

Sleep Terror

• Partial arousal from Stage 4 sleep

• Usually begins with piercing scream

Nightmares

• Frightening dreams during REM sleep

Somniloquy

• Sleep talking

• Occurs during any sleep stage

• More frequent among children

Major Sleep Disorders

Narcolepsy

• Incurable sleep disorder

• Excessive daytime sleepiness

• Uncontrollable attacks of REM sleep

Sleep Apnea

• Sleep periods when breathing stops

• Individual must awaken briefly to breathe

Insomnia

• Difficulty falling and staying asleep

• Waking too early

• Sleep is light, restless, or poor quality

Meditation

• Focus attention on object, word, breathing, or body movement to block out all distractions

• Altered state of consciousness

• Yoga, Zen, Transcendental Meditation (TM) all forms of meditation

Hypnosis

• Trance-like state of concentrated and focused attention

• Heightened suggestibility, diminished response to external stimuli

• Suspend usual rational and logical ways of thinking and perceiving

• Experience distortions in perceptions, memories, thinking

While Under Hypnosis

• Aware of what is going on

• Will not violate moral values

• Cannot demonstrate superhuman strength or perform amazing feats

• Memory is not more accurate

• Will not reveal embarrassing secrets

• Will not relive events

• Not under complete control of hypnotist

• Responses often automatic and involuntary

Medical Uses of Hypnosis

• Used in medicine, dentistry, psychotherapy

• Controls pain and side effects associated with cancer care

• Moderate effect in weight control

• Useless in overcoming drug and alcohol abuse and nicotine addiction

• Not acceptable in court in Canada

Drug Dependence

Psychoactive Drugs

• Alter normal mental functioning, mood, perception, thought

• Used medically

• Controlled substances

Physical Drug Dependence

• Compulsive pattern of drug use

• User develops drug tolerance

• Unpleasant withdrawal symptoms

• Meth addiction

Drug Tolerance

• Use progressively less affected

• Larger doses necessary to achieve same effect

• Larger doses necessary to maintain same effect

Withdrawal Symptoms

• Physical and psychological symptoms occur when drug discontinued

• Terminates when drug taken again

Psychological Drug Dependence

• Craving for drug’s pleasurable effects

Factors for Adolescent Drug Use and Abuse

Stimulants

• Category of drugs speeds up activity in central nervous system

• Suppresses appetite, feel more awake, alert, energetic

Uppers

• Slang term for stimulants

Types of Stimulants

• Caffeine

  • World’s most widely used drug

  • Mental alertness increases, we stay awake

  • Found in coffee, tea, cola drinks, chocolate, drugs

• Nicotine

  • Tolerance develops in hours

  • 16.7% of Canadians smoke

  • 37,000 Canadians die each year from smoking

• Amphetamines

  • CNS stimulant increases arousal, relieves fatigue, suppresses appetite

• Cocaine

  • Stimulant derived from coca leaves

  • Produces feeling of euphoria

• Crack

  • Most potent, inexpensive, addictive form of cocaine

  • Is smoked

• Crash

  • Depression, exhaustion, irritability, anxiety after amphetamine, cocaine, or crack high.

Hallucinogens

• Sometimes called psychedelics

• Alter perception and mood

• can cause hallucinations

Hallucinations

• Imaginary sensations

Excited Delirium

• Psychomotor agitation

• Anxiety

• Hallucinations

• Speech disturbances

• Violent and bizarre behaviour

• Insensitivity to pain

• Superhuman strength

• Elevated body temperature (hyperthermia)

• Can result in cardiac and or respiratory arrest

Type of Hallucinogens

• LSD (lysergic acid diethyl amide)

  • Powerful with unpredictable effects

  • perceptual changes and vivid hallucinations up to panic and terror

• Ecstasy (MDMA)

  • Designer drug

  • Can produce permanent damage to serotonin-releasing neurons

• Marijuana

  • Relaxation and giddiness

  • Perceptual distortions and hallucinations

  • THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is main psychoactive ingredient

Depressants

• Decrease activity in central nervous system

• Slow down bodily functions

• Reduce sensitivity to outside stimulation

• Downers = slang for depressants

Types of Depressants

• Alcohol

  • Central nervous system

• Barbiturates (Downers)

  • Addictive central nervous system depressants used a sedatives, sleeping pills, anaesthetics

  • Minor tranquilizers; Valium, Librium, Dal mane, Xanax

• Narcotics

  • From opium poppy

  • Narcotic means “stupor”

  • Relieves pain. has calming effects

  • Heroin is highly addictive narcotic derived from morphine

Behavioural Effects with Different Blood Alcohol Levels

Chapter 4 - Classical Conditioning

• One of the simplest forms of learning

• Powerful effect on our attitudes, likes, dislikes, emotional responses

• Learning in which association formed between two stimuli

Stimulus/Stimuli

• Any event or object in environment to which an organiam responds

• Examples: sound, light, touch, etc.

• Plural of stimulus is stimuli

Reflex

• Inborn, unlearned, automatic response to stimulus

• Eye blink to puff of air

• Salivation to food

Conditioned Reflex

• Learned reflex

Classical Conditioning - Pavlov

• Ivan Pavlov directed research in physiology, Institute of Experimental Medicine, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1891 until 1936

• Studied conditioned reflect in dogs

• Involuntary response (salvation) associated with sights, sounds of feeding

Stimulus and Response

• Neutral Stimulus (NS)

  • No response when presented

• Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

  • A stimulus that elicits a response without prior learning

• Unconditioned Response (UR)

  • A response that is invariably elicited by the unconditioned stimulus without prior learning

• Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

  • Previously neutral stimulus

  • After repeated pairings with unconditioned stimulus, becomes associated with it and elicits a conditioned response

• Conditioned Response (CR)

  • A response that comes to be elicited by a conditioned stimulus

Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery

• Extinction

  • Weakening ( eventual disappearance) of learned response

  • Conditioned stimulus repeatedly presented without unconditioned stimulus

• Spontaneous Recovery

  • The reappearance of an extinguished response when an organism is exposed to the original conditioned stimulus following a rest period.

Generalization and Discrimination

• Generalization

  • Classical conditioning: conditioned response to stimulus similar to originally conditioned stimulus

Grey Dog bites you → Fear Dogs

• Bells with sounds similar to the original bell will also elicit salivation

• The more similar - the more the salivation

Discrimination

• The learned ability to distinguish between similar stimuli so that the conditioned response occurs only to the original conditioned stimulus

  • Bell 1 → Food

  • Bell 2 → No Food

• Dog will learn to salivate to the sounds

Extinction

• Bell → No Food

• Salivation gradually decreases until it stops entirely - response has been extinguished

Chapter 5 - Deception

Polygraph Method

• Designed by psychologist/lawyer William Marston in 1917. Rejected by U.S. courts in Frye vs U.S.

• Based on the belief that deception is related to physiologucal change

• Measures:

  • Breathing

  • Heart rate

  • Sweating (galvanic skin response)

Uses of Polygraph

• Helps in criminal investigations (suspect is asked to tale a polygraph test)

• Verify a crime has occurred (victim is asked to take a polygraph test, rare)

• Monitoring sexual offenders on probation (United States)

• Pre-employment screening for security agencies and police

• Verify insurance claims

Types of Polygraph Tests

• There are two main types of polygraph tests:

  • Comparison Question Test (CQT) (most commonly used in Canada)

  • Concealed Information Test (CIT)

Comparison Question Test

• Includes three types of questions:

  • Irrelevant

  • Relevant

  • Comparison

• Deception is assessed by comparing physiological responses between relevant and comparison questions

Phases of the CQT

• Pre-test Interview: interview with suspect to develop the comparison questions

• Polygraph exam: Questions are asked while suspect’s physiological responses are measured

• Scoring: Polygraph examiner scores the physiological responses to determine if the suspect is truthful, deceptive, or inconclusive

• Post-test Interview: If a suspect is judged deceptive they are pressured to confess

Assumptions

• Assume guilty people react more to relevant questions and innocent people react more to comparison questions

• Innocent people believed to react more strongly to questions about their character and past behaviour because they know they are being truthful about the relevant questions

Concealed Information Test

• Assess if suspect has information that only the criminal would know

• Asks suspects multiple-choice questions, one option is correct

• Assumes if the suspect is guilty they will react strongly to correct information

• More common response measures in CIT is palmer sweating

• Rarely used in Canada or United States

Types of Polygraph Studies

• Laboratory studies

  • Ground truth is known

  • Limited application to real-life situations

  • No incentive to beat the polygraph (motivation)

  • No fear of they fail a polygraph (motivation)

  • Therefore no stress to measure

• Field studies

  • Real-life situations and actual suspects

  • Ground truth is now known

    • Two ways of establishing ground truth have been developed;

      1. Judicial guilt or innocence

      2. Confession elicited or not

Accuracy of the CQT

• Majority of guilty suspects correctly identified

  • 84% to 92% guilty correctly identified

• Relatively large number of innocent suspects falsely identified as guilty (high false positive rate)

  • 9% to 24% false positive errors

• Accuracy of original examiners higher than blind scores (those who only examine the chart)

Accuracy of CIT

• No field studies have been conducted in North America

• very accurate at identifying innocent participants

  • Around 95% correctly identified

• Less accurate at identifying guilty participants

  • Around 85% correctly identified

Countermeasures

• Both physical and mental countermeasures dramatically reduce the effectiveness of the CQT (Honts et al., 1994) 50% beat the test after couching countermeasures

• The CIT does not appear to be effected by anti-anxiety drugs (lacono et al., 1992)

Admissibility of Polygraph

• Did not pass general acceptance test when first admitted as evidence in court (Frye v. United States, 1923)

• Currently allowed in some States if agreed by both prosecution and defence

• Not admissible into evidence in Canadian courts (R. v. Beland, 1987)

Other Measures

• Thermal Imaging

  • Detects facial warning due to blood flow

• Event-Related Brain Potentials (ERP)

  • Electrodes measure brain activity in response to a significant stimulus

  • P300 used to detect guilty knowledge

• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) example (has not passed general acceptance test)

  • Measures differences in brain activity when people are being honest versus deceptive

  • Different parts of the brain are activated when person is deceptive versus when they are telling the truth

Detecting Deception - Verbal Cues

• Verbal Cues most consistently related to deception include:

  • Higher voice pitch (highest connection to deception)

  • Increased speech disturbance (ah, umm)

  • Slower speech

• Pattern of verbal cues may depend on how cognitively complex the lie is

• Verbal cues that are indicative of honesty:

  • Make corrections in account

  • admit to lack of memory

• Verbal cues that are indicative of deception:

  • Little detail

  • Less compelling accounts

  • More nervous and tense

Verbal Characteristics of Deception

• Speech fillers

  • Frequency of saying “ah” or “umm”

• Speech errors

  • Repetition, change, slips of tongue

• Pitch of voice

• Rate of speech

• Speech pauses

Non-verbal Characteristics of Deception

• Gaze aversion

• Smiling

• Blinking

• Fidgeting

• Illustrators

• Hand or finger movements

• Leg or foot movements

• Shrugs

• Head movements

• Shifting positions

Detecting Deception - Professionals

• Vrij (2000) reported accuracy rates:

  • Truths = 67%

  • Lies = 44%

• Accuracy of professional lie catchers vary:

  • Have a truthfulness bias

  • Tend to rely on wrong cues

  • Microexpresion software and training

Factitious Disorder

• Intentionally produced physical or psychological symptoms

• Internal motivation to assume the sick role

• Absence of external incentives

  • An example of a Factitious Disorder is:

    • Munchausen syndrome

    • Munchausen by proxy

Somatoform Disorder

• Physical symptoms that cannot be explained by organic impairment

• Symptoms are not intentionally produced

• Often co-occurs with depression or anxiety

Malingering

• Psychological or physical symptoms are voluntary

• There are external motivations for the productions of symptoms example faking cancer

  • Malinger mental illness to avoid criminal punishment, to obtain drugs, or for compensation such as disability

  • Prevalence quite high in forensic settings

Explanations of Malingering

• Three explanatory models of malingering (Rogers, 1990):

  • Pathogenic Model

  • Criminological Model

  • Adaptational Model

Pathogenic Model

• Assumes malingering results from an underlying mental disorder

• The patient attempts to gain control over his or her pathology by creating fictitious symptoms

• Little empirical support

Criminological Model

• Malingering due to “A bad person in a bad circumstance behaving badly”. malingering should be suspected if:

  • Medicolegal context of the presentation (medical evidence?)

  • Lack of cooperation during diagnostic evaluation or following treatment plan

  • Marked discrepancy between individuals claimed stress or disability and objective findings and observations

  • There is a presence of Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD)

• Research does not support an association between APD or cooperation and malingering

Adaptational Model

• Asserts malingering is likely to occur when:

  • A perceived adversarial context is present

  • Personal stakes are very high

  • No other viable alternatives are perceived

• Research finding support this model

Research Assessing Malingering

• Three basic designs:

  1. Case study

  2. Simulation

  3. Known groups

Case Studies

• Useful for generating a wide variety of hypotheses

• Only way to study rare syndromes

• Not often used

Simulation Design

• Most frequently used

• Participants are told to malinger a specific disorder and compared to:

  • Control group of malingers

  • Clinical comparison group of actual clinical patients that have the disorder

• High experimental rigour

• Limited generalizability to the real world

Known-Groups Design

• Involves two stages:

  1. Establishing the criterion groups (e.g., genuine patients and malingers)

  2. Analysis of the similarities and differences between criterion groups

• Good generalizability to real-world settings

• Problems classifying criterion groups

Detecting Malingered Psychosis

• Clues regarding the symptoms:

  • Report rare, atypical symptoms, or absurd symptoms

  • Report atypical delusions or hallucinations

  • Absence of subtle symptoms

  • Continuous hallucinations rather than intermittent

  • Accuse clinical of not believing them

  • Presence of accomplice

  • Crime fits pattern of criminal history

  • i.e., Luka Mognotta

Defensiveness

• Defensiveness refers to the conscious denial or minimization of physical or psychological symptoms

  • Might wish to appear high functioning to be seen as a fit parent

  • Some patients may not want to admit they have certain symptoms

Assessments - SIRS

• The Structured Interview Reported Symptoms (SIRS; Rogers et a., 1992)

  • Uses a structure interview

  • 172 items organized into 8 scales

  • Research indicates good validity

Assessments - M-FAST

• The M-FAST test (Miller, 2000) Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test

  • Interview-based method

  • 25 items organized into 9 scales

  • Useful and reliable screening test for malingering mental illness

  • This is often used as a screening tool for emergency admission for mental illness.

Assessments - MMPI/MMPI-2

• MMPI/MMPI-2 are self-report personality inventories

  • They contain scales such as the infrequency (F) scale and the Back F (Fb) scale selected to detect unusual or atypical symptoms

  • Research indicates these scales are the most useful at detecting malingers (Rogers et al., 2003)

Chapter 6 - Eyewitness Testimony

• One of the earliest and most widely studied topics in Forensic Psychology

• Police and Courts rely on eyewitness evidence

• Eyewitness testimony is one of the most compelling types of evidence in criminal trials

• Information about the likelihood and types of mistakes made by eyewitness is vitally important in terms of justice

• We will focus on how memory works when it comes to remembering in an eyewitness context

• Examining various factors and procedures that can influence how accurate eyewitnesses can be

The Role of Memory

• Eyewitness testimony relies on encoding, storing, and recalling information

• Storing memories requires several steps including attention, encoding, short-term memory, and long-term memory

• Not all memories pass successfully through these stages and problems may occur at each stage

The Stages of Memory

Perception/Attention → Encoding → Short Term Memory → Long Term Memory → Retrieval

Types of Eyewitness Memory

• There are two types of memory retrieval; that eyewitnesses perform:

  • Recall Memory: Reporting details of a previously witnessed event/person

  • Recognition Memory: Determining whether a previously seen item or person is the same as what is currently being viewed.

Studying Eyewitness Issues

• Eyewitness issues can be studied using a variety of methods:

  • Archival data (police reports)

  • Naturalistic observation

  • Laboratory simulations

Types of Eyewitness Independent Variables

• Two types of independent variables in eyewitness research:

  • Estimator variables: Present at the time of the crime and cannot be changed (e.g., age, lighting, intoxication levels)

  • System variables: Can be manipulated to increase (or decrease) eyewitness accuracy (e.g., lineup procedure, interview procedures).

Recall of the Event/Culprit

• Recall of the crime event can take two forms:

  • Open ended recall/free narrative:

    • Witnesses are asked to recount what they witnessed withut being ptompted

  • Direct question call:

    • Witnesses are asked specific questions about the event/culprit

Types of Eyewitness dependent Variables

• There are three general dependent variables used in eyewitness studies:

  1. Recall of the event

  2. Recall of the culprit

  3. Recognition of the culprit

Dependent Variables Examined

• The amount of information reported

• The type of information reported (culprit details vs peripheral details)

• Accuracy of information reported

  • Amount of omission errors (failed to report)

  • Amount of commission errors (false information)

• Recognition memory

  • Accuracy of the decision (error rate)

  • Types of errors made (error rate)

Interviewing Witness

• Police officers may impede the interview process by:

  • Interrupting witnesses during free recall

  • Asking short specific questions which may not get at critical information

  • Asking questions not relevant to what the witness is currently describing (reduces recall by 19%)

Memory Conformity

• When what one witness reports influences what another witness reports

The Misinformation Effect

• Occurs when a witness is provided with inaccurate information about an event after it is witnessed and incorporates the ‘misinformation’ in their later recall (Loftus, 1975)

• Also known as Post-event information effect

Misinformation Studies Results

• Participants who are given misinformation provide different reports than those who receive no misleading information

• Subtle difference in phrasing of the question (e.g., using ‘smashed’ instead of ‘hit’), may bias witness’ responses (Loftus & Palmer, 1974)

Explaining the Misinformation Effect

• Three theories attempt to explain the misinformation effect:

  1. Misinformation acceptance hypothesis

  2. Source misattribution hypothesis

  3. Memory impairment hypothesis

• Misinformation acceptance hypothesis:

  • Incorrect information is provided because the witness guesses as to what the officer or experimenter wants the response to be

• Source misattribution hypothesis:

  • Where the witness has two memories, the original and the misinformation

  • The witness cannot remember where each memory originated or the source of each

  • When asked to recall what they’ve seen the witness chooses the incorrect memory

• Memory impairment hypothesis:

  • Where the original memory is replaced with the new, incorrect, information

  • The original memory is no longer accessible

Facilitating Eyewitness Recall

• Procedures used in the investigative process to aid eyewitness recall include:

  • Hypnosis

  • Cognitive Interview

  • Enhanced Cognitive Interview

Hypnosis

• Can be used to facilitate retrieval; of memories. However, memories may or may not be accurate

• Greater information is recalled when participants close their eyes (Perfect et al., 2008)

• Hypnotically refreshed memory:

  • A hypnotized witness may be able to produce a greater number of details

  • The difficulty is not being able to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate details

Cognitive Interview

• Based on memory retrieval techniques:

  1. Reinstating the context

  2. Reporting everything

  3. Recalling event in different order

  4. Changing perspectives

Enhanced Cognitive Interview

• The following components were added to the original Cognitive Interview (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992):

  • Rapport building - make the witness comfortable and supported

  • Supportive interviewer behaviour - free recall is not interrupted, pauses are waited out by the interviewer, focussed attention on the witness

  • Transfer of control - flow of the interview is directed by the witness, the witness is the expert

  • Focused retrieval - questions are open ended, not leading or suggestive and after free recall focused memory techniques are used

  • Witness compatible questioning - questions should match what the witness’s thinking and talking about

Cognitive Interview Results

• Cognitive interviews elicit more information than “standard police interviews”, without an increase in inaccurate information (Memon & Bull, 1991)

• Unclear which components elicit this increase in accurate information (Kebbell & Wagstaff, 1998)

Recall of the Perpetrator

• Descriptions of culprits by eyewitnesses are lacking in detail and accuracy

• Gender, hair, clothing, and height are commonly reported descriptors’

Recognition Memory

• Recognition memory ca be tested in a number of ways:

  • Live lineups or photo arrays

  • Video surveillance records

  • Voice identification

Line-up Identification

• Witnesses are frequently asked to identify a culprit from a lineup

• Lineups contain the suspect (who may or may not be guilty) who is placed among a set of individuals who are known to be innocent for the crime in question, called foils or distractors

Estimating Identification Accuracy

• To accurately assess the rate at which real witness will correctly identify culprits, two types of lineups are needed in research:

  • Target-present lineup: Lineup contains the culprit

  • Target-absent lineup: Lineup contains an innocent suspect

Accurate Identification Decisions

Line-up Procedures

• Simultaneous lineup: A common lineup procedure that presents all lineup members at one time to the witness

• “Relative Judgement”: Happens where lineup members are compared with one another rather than to the witness memory

• Sequential lineup: Lineup members are presented serially to the witness, witness must accept of reject each picture

• “Absolute Judgement”: Witness compares photo to memory

Line-up Procedure Effectiveness

• Sequential lineups increase the likelihood of a correct rejection 42% compared to the simultaneous procedure 65% (Lindsay & Wells, 1985)

• However, recent research suggests that the superiority of sequential over simultaneous lineups may be the product of methodological factors (McQuinston-Surrett et al., 2006)

Alternative Identification Procedures

• “Show-up”: The witness is shown only one photo (highly suggestive) but witnesses often correctly reject single photos

  • can also be a “field show-up” where the witness sees the actual suspect live

• “Walk-by”: Police take witness to a location where the suspect is likely to be (naturalistic environment) then the witness is asked if they see the perpetrator

Biased Line-ups

• Biased lineups: Suggest who the police suspect and thereby who the witness should identify

• Types of biases that increase false identification:

  • Foil bias (the suspect photo is the only one who matches the description)

  • Clothing bias (suspect is thee only one wearing the same clothes as described)

  • Instruction bias (police imply the presence of suspect)

Voice Identification

• Having longer versus shorter voice samples leads to greater accuracy

Decreasing Voice Identification

• Whispering

• Disguising the voice

• Unfamiliar accents

• Placing the target voice near the end of the lineup

• Showing the face along with the voice

• Using a larger number of foils

Witness Confidence

• A small positive correlation exists between a witness’s confidence and their identification accuracy

• Confidence can be manipulated with post-identification feedback

• Mock-jurors do not appear sensitive to “inflated confidence”

Estimator Variables

• Age:

  • Younger and older adults (over age 60) produce comparable correct identification rates (from target-present lineups)

  • Older adults produce lower correct rejection rates (from target-absent lineups) compared to younger adults

• Race:

  • Witnesses are able to remember faces of their own race more accurately than faces of other faces, known as rhetorical Cross-Race Effect, Own-Race Bias or Other-Race Bias

• Cross-race effect may relate to:

  • Attitudes

  • Physiognomic homogeneity

  • Interracial contact

• Weapon Focus:

  • The phenomenon of a witness’ attention being focused on the culprit’s weapon rather than on the culprit

• Attempts to explain this phenomenon:

  • Cue-Utilization hypothesis: Suggests as that when emotional arousal increases, attentional capacity decreases

  • Unusualness hypothesis: Suggest that weapons are unusual and attract the witness’s attention

Eyewitness Expert Testimony

• there is some controversy regarding the application of research on eyewitness issues to the courts

• Points of contention include:

  • Reliability of results across studies

  • Applicability of laboratory simulations to real life situations

  • Brief exposure to culprit (experiment vs real world)

Public Policy Issues

• In more than 75% of the DNA exonerated cases, the primary evidence used to convict was eyewitness identification

• As a result, a national set of guidelines were developed in the US

• Innocence Project for Canadians (1997) and Association for the Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted

Public Policy Identification Guidelines

• The person who conducts the lineup should not be aware of who is the suspect

• Eyewitnesses should be informed the culprit may not be present in the lineup

• The suspect should not stand out

• A clear statement regarding a witness’ confidence should be taken at the time of the identification

Sophonow Inquiry Recommendations for Canada

• The lineup procedure should be videotaped or audiotaped

• Officers should inform witnesses that it is just as important to clear innocent suspects

• The photo lineup should be presented sequentially

• Officers should not discuss a witness’ identification with him or her

Chapter 7 - Social Psychology

• The study of the way i which the actual, imagines, or implied presnece of others influences the thoughts feelings and behaviours of individuals

Social Perception

• Impression Formation

  Primacy Effect

  • Overall impression of another person

  • Influenced more by first information we receive than by later information

• Expectations

  • Once formed, our expectations affect how we perceive behaviour of others

Attributions - Explaining Behaviour

• Attribution

  • Inference about cause of our own or another’s behaviour

• Situational Attributions

  • Person attributes behaviour to external cause or factor operating within the situation

• Dispositional Attributions

  • Person attributes behaviour to internal cause or personal trait

Attribution Errors

• Actor-Observer Bias

  • The tendency of observers to make dispositional attributions for the behaviours of others but situational attributions for their own behaviour

• Fundamental Attribution Error

  • The tendency to overemphasize internal factors and underemphasize situational ones when explaining other peoples behaviour

• Self-Serving Bias

  • Attribute our successes to dispositional causes and failures to situational causes

Factors Influencing Attraction

• Proximity

  • Geographic closeness; major factor in attraction.

• Mere-Exposure Effect

  • Develop positive or negative traits to the person.

  • Result of observing one major positive or negative trait

• Halo Effect

  • Attribute positive or negative traits to the person

  • Result of observing one major positive or negative trait

Romantic Attraction

• Matching Hypothesis

  • tend to have spouse, lovers, friends similar to oneself similar in social assets such as physical attractiveness

Social Influence

• Conformity

  • Changing one’s behaviour or attitude to be consistent with norms, expectations or group

• Norms

  • Attitudes and standards if behaviour expected or members of group

• Obedience

  • Following orders

  • Stanley Milgram study

  • Milgram Experiment redone

Asch’s Study of Conformity

Compliance

• Compliance

  • Acting in accordance with wishes, suggestions, or direct requests of another person

• Foot-in-the-Door Technique

  • Strategy designed to secure favourable response to small request at first with the aim of making subject more likely to agree later to larger request

• Door-in-the-Face Technique

  • Make unreasonable request first expecting the person will refuse, but will more likely to respond favourably to smaller request at later time

• Low-Ball Technique

  • Gain compliance by making very attractive initial offer to get a person to agree to an action and then making the terms less favourable.

Group Influence

• Social Facilitation

  • Positive or negative effect on performance, attributed to presence of others, either an audience or a co-action effect

• Audience Effects

  • Impact of passive spectators on performance

• Co-action Effects

  • Impact on performance caused by presence of others engaged in same task

• Social Loafing

  • Tendency to exert less effort when working with others than when working alone

• Group Polarization

  • Group discussion causes shift to more extreme positions in whatever direction they were leaning inn the first place

• Groupthink

  • The tendency of cohesive groups to feel such pressure to maintain group solidarity and reach an agreement on an issue that they fail to adequately weigh available evidence or to consider objections or alternatives

• Roles

  • Behaviours considered appropriate for individuals occupying certain positions within group.

Social Facilitation

3 Components of Attitudes

• Attitudes

  • Relatively stable evaluation of person, object, situation, issue that varies along a continuum of positive or negative

1. Cognitive Component

   • Thoughts and beliefs about attitudinal object

2. Emotional Component

   • Feelings toward attitudinal object

3. Behavioural Component

   • Predisposition to act toward attitudinal object

Cognitive Dissonance

• The unpleasant state that can occur when people become aware that their attitudes and behaviour is inconsistent

• Reduce dissonance by changing behaviour or attitude, explaining away inconsistency, reducing its importance

Reducing Cognitive Dissonance

Persuasion

• Deliberate attempt to influence attitudes and behaviours of others

Elements of Persuasion

• Source of Communication

  • Credibility, attractiveness, likability

• Audience

  • More persuaded by a message they deem relevant, People with low intelligence

• Message

  • Unemotional versus emotional

  • “Make America Great Again”

• Medium

  • Repetition can influence people

  • Canadian Converts to terrorism

Social Cognition

• Mental process

• People use processes to notice, interpret, remember, apply information about social world

• Enables them to simplify, categorize, order their world

Prejudice and Discrimination

• Realistic Conflict Theory

  • Prejudice arises or increases when social groups compete for scarce economic resources

• In-Group Conflict

  • Social group, strong sense of togetherness

  • Others are excluded

• Out-Group Conflict

  • Social group identified by in-group as not belonging

• Prejudice

  • Negative attitudes toward others

  • Based on gender, religion, race, membership in particular group

• Discrimination

  • Negative behaviour toward others

  • Based on gender, religion, race, membership in particular group

Stereotypes

• Widely shared beliefs about characteristics, traits, attitudes and behaviours of members of various social groups this includes he assumption that group members are all alike

Reducing Prejudice and discrimination

• Contact Hypothesis

  • Notion that prejudice can be reduced by increased contact with members of different social groups

The Bystander Effect

• Bystander Effect

  • As number of bystanders at emergency increases, probability victim receives help decreases. Help delayed if given.

• Diffusion of Responsibility

  • Feeling among bystanders at emergency that responsibility for helping shared by group therefore, each individual less compelled to act than if one had total responsibility

Prosocial Behaviour

• Behaviour that benefits others such as helping, cooperation, sympathy

Altruism

• Behaviour aimed at helping others

• Requires some self-sacrifice

• Not designed for personal gain

Aggression

• Aggression

  • Intentional infliction of physical or psychological harm on another

• Biological Factors in Aggression

  • Genetics

  • Level of arousal

  • Testosterone

• Frustration

  • Interference with attainment of goal or blocking of impulse

• Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

  • Hypothesis that frustration produces aggression

• Scapegoating

  • Displacing aggression onto minority groups or other innocent targets who were not responsible for the frustration

• Social Learning Theory:

  • People learn to behave aggressively by observing aggressive models and by having aggressive responses/behaviours reinforced

  • Remember Bandura (Bobo doll)

  • Influenced by aggressive models in the subculture, the family and media

Chapter 8 - Psychopathy

• Psychopathy:

  • A personality disorder defined by a collection of interpersonal, affective, and behavioural characteristics, including manipulation, lack of remorse or empathy, impulsivity, and antisocial behaviours

• Descriptions of psychopathy exist in most cultures

Self-Report Measures

• Advantages:

  • Cost-effective

  • Measure emotions that cannot be observed

  • Easy to administer

  • Do not require inter-rater reliability

  • Can detect faking (good and bad)

• Challenges:

  • Psychopaths lie

  • May not have sufficient insight

  • Do not experience certain emotions

Subclinical Psychopaths

• Students who scored higher on the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (SRP) were more likely to defraud the experimenter (Paulhus, Williams, & Nathanson, 2002)

• Students with higher SRP scores were better at identifying vulnerable victims

• Students owning vicious dogs were more likely to report criminal behaviours (Ragatz, Fremouw, Thomas & McCoy, 2009)

Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD)

• A personality disorder characterized by a history of behaviours in which the rights of others are violated

• Need to display three or more symptoms

  • Repeatedly engage in criminal activity

  • Deceitfulness

  • Impulsivity fail to plan

  • Irritability and aggressiveness

  • Irresponsibility

  • Lack or remorse

  • Reckless behaviour

• Almost all psychopaths can be classified as having APD

• Most offenders diagnosed with APD are not psychopaths

• APD, psychopathy, and sociopathy are used interchangeably

  • They are related but distinct constructs

  • (75-80% of convictions indictable offences meet criteria for APD only 15-25% score high on PCL-R)

Experts on Psychopathy in Canada

• Making sentencing decisions

• Dangerous offender hearings

• To help determine parole eligibility

Psychopathy and Violence

• Psychopaths make up a small proportion of the population but account for a large proportion of all crime committed

• Psychopaths:

  • Start their criminal careers younger

  • Persist longer and commit a greater variety of crime

  • Engage in more violent crime

  • More likely to reoffend in violent manner

• In cases of murder, psychopaths have multiple victims, stranger victims, male victims, left the scene of the crime, and deny responsibility.

• Psychopathic homicide offenders are more likely to engage in instrumental homicide (planned and motivated by an external goal) as compared to non psychopathic homicide offenders.

Psychopaths in the Community

• Not all psychopaths are violent offender

• Babiak, Neumann, and Hare (2010) found 5% of their sample of corporate professionals met the criteria for psychopathy

• Psychopathic professionals tend to have:

  • Poor management and performance appraisals

  • Better creativity

  • Stronger communication skills

  • Less likely to be team players

Psychopaths and Victims

• Kirkman (2005) identified characteristics of non-incarerated psychopaths in heterosexual relationships.

• He found that women:

  • Were talked into being victims

  • Were lied to

  • Emotionally abuse

  • Were economically abused

  • The men had multiple infidelities

  • Were isolated

  • Their children were mistreated

Psychopathy and Sexual Violence

• Psychopathy is weakly associated with sexual offences

• Brown and Forth (1997) report that psychopathy was related to number of previous violent offences, but not related to previous sexual offences

• Offenders who commit sexual homicide score higher on psychopathy

• Mixed sexual offenders (assault both adults and children) are the second most psychopathic offenders

• Compared to other sex offenders, child molesters have the lowest psychopathy scores

• Psychopathic sexual offenders are more likely to be vindictive and opportunistic, whereas, non-psychopathic rapists are more likely to report feeling anxious (Brown & Forth, 1997)

• Offenders who are sexual sadists score high for psychopathy particularly in affective deficient facets and anti-social facets

Psychopathy in Youth

• Two ways to asses psychopathic traits in youth:

  1. Antisocial Process Screening Device: Observer rating scale to assess psychopathic traits in children (Frick & Hare, 2003)

  2. Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth version: Scale designed to measure psychopathic traits in adolescents (Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003)

• Several issues with labeling a youth as a psychopath:

  • Are psychopathic traits in youth stable?

    • Study found fairly high stability across a 4 year period (Frick et al., 2003)

    • Study found moderate stability in traits from ages 13 to 24 (Lynam et al., 2007)

  • Youth who score high on PCL:YV:

    • Begin criminal behaviours younger

    • Engage in more violence

    • Are at greater risk to reoffend once released

• Psychopathic traits are linked with delinquency and aggression, not anxiety and depression (Campbell, Porter, & Santor, 2004)

• Youth with psychopathic traits may be more responsive to intervention

• Youth with high PCL:YV scores were given treatment in an intensive treatment centre or a correctional centre (Caldwell et al., 2006)

  • Youth who received treatment from correctional centre violently reoffended at twice the rate of those in intensive program in treatment centres

Psychopathy Label

• Students presented with information on a defendant who was either psychopathic, psychotic, or no mental illness

  • Mock jurors were more likely to support death penalty for psychopathic offenders (Edens, Colwell, Deforges, & Fernandez, 2005)

  • Mock jurors were less likely to support death penalty for psychopathic juveniles. (Edens, Guy, & Fernandez, 2003)

Youth Psychopathy Label

• Diagnostic labels are not strongly related to probation officers’ recommendations of type of sanction, risk level, or treatment amenability.

Nature vs. Nurture

• Nature: Innate characteristics

• Nurture: personal experiences and environment

• Evidence to suggest genetic contribution to psychopathy

• Identical twins have more similar scores on Psychopathic Personality Inventory than do fraternal twins

• Genetics account for between 29% and 59% of variance on PPI sub-scores

Does Family Matter?

• The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (40 year prospective study)

  • 97% of men scoring 10 or more on PCL-R had been convicted of an offence

  • Children who experienced abuse in childhood had slightly higher PCL-R scores than the control group

• Best family background predictors of developing psychopathy in adulthood are:

  • Criminal parent

  • Having uninvolved father

  • Low family income

  • Disrupted family life

  • Experiencing physical neglect

Psychopathy and Law Enforcement

• Almost half of police killers had traits consistent with psychopathy

• Psychopathic suspects are difficult to interrogate, according to Quayle (2008) they:

  • Try to outwit

  • Attempt to control the interrogation

  • Will not be fooled by bluffs

  • Enjoy being the focus of investigation

  • Attempt to shock

Tips for Interrogating Psychopaths

• Case familiarity

• Convey experience and confidence

• Show liking or admiration

• Avoid criticism

• Avoid conveying emotion

Response Modulation Deficit Theory

• Psychopaths fail to use contextual cues that are peripheral to a dominant response set to modulate their behaviour

  • Fail to learn to avoid punishment

  • Do not pay attention to to cues that would inhibit behaviours

Affective Theory of Psychopathy

• psychopaths have a deficit in the experience of certain critical emotions that guide prosocial behaviour

• Psychopaths did not identify emotional words faster than neutral words

• Psychopaths’ blink startle did not differ in magnitude across pleasant, unpleasant and neutral slides

• Blair (2006, 2008) has proposed an amygdala dysfunction theory to explain the affective deficits seen in psychopaths

Psychopathy

• The neuroscience of restorative justice:

  • Amygdala Deficit Theory

Chapter 9 - Psychological Disorders

Abnormal

• Is the behaviour strange within the person’s pwn culture? Does the behaviour cause the person distress?

• Is the behaviour maladaptive (Interferes with quality of life)

• Is the person a danger to self or others?

• Is the person legally responsible for actions

Defining and Classifying Psychological Disorders

• DSM-5-TR

  • Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

  • Describes and classifies about 300 mental disorders

  • Describes symptoms that must be present for diagnosing each disorder

Perspectives

• Biological

  • A psychological disorder is a symptom of an underlying physical disorder caused by structural or biochemical abnormalities in the brain, genetically inherited or caused by infection

• Treatment

  • Drugs, surgery, electroconvulsive therapies

• Psychodynamic

  • Disorders stem from early childhood experiences; unresolved sexual or aggressive conflicts and an imbalance between Id, Superego, and Ego (Freud)

  • The Id relates to instinct, the Superego plays the critical and moralizing roles, and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the Id and the Superego.

• Treatment

  • Bring repressed material to the consciousness and help patient work through conflicts

• Learning

  • Abnormal thoughts feelings and behaviours are learned and sustained like any other behaviours, or there is a failure to learn proper behaviour

• Treatment

  • Use classical and operant conditioning and modelling to extinguish abnormal behaviours and teach new behaviours

• Cognitive

  • Faulty and negative thinking can cause psychological disorders

• Treatment

  • Use Cognitive therapy or rational emotive therapy to change faulty or irrational thinking

• Humanistic

  • Disorders result from blocking of natural tendency toward self actualization

• Treatment

  • Increase self acceptance and understanding through clients centred therapy that helps patients become more inner directed

DSM-5 Categories of Mental Disorders

• Anxiety
• Obsessive Compulsive
• Trauma and stress related
• Somatic symptom and related disorders
• Dissociative disorders
• Schizophrenia Spectrum and other psychotic disorders
• Depressive disorders
• Personality disorders
• Bipolar disorders
• Personality disorders
• Paraphilic disorders
• Substance related addictive disorders
• Neurodevelopmental disorders
• Disruptive-impulse control disorders
• Sleep disorders
• Feeding and eating disorders

Psychosis

• Severe psychological disorder

• Sometimes requiring hospitalization

  • Loses contact with reality

  • Suffers delusions

  • Hallucinations

  • Seriously impaired ability to function in everyday life

Anxiety Disorders

• Anxiety (12% of population)

  • Generalized feeling of apprehension, fear, tension.

  • May be associated with particular object or situation or may be free-floating

  • Not associated with anything specific

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder

  • Anxiety disorder

  • Excessive anxiety or worry that is difficult to control

Panic Disorder

• Anxiety disorder

• Recurrent unpredictable attacks of overwhelming anxiety, fear, or terror

Panic Attack

• Attack of overwhelming anxiety, fear, terror

Phobias

• Phobia

  • persistent, irrational fear of object, situation, activity.

  • person feels compelled to avoid these

1. Agoraphobia

• Intense fear of being in situation where immediate escape not possible or help not immediately available

• Creates incapacitating anxiety

2. Social Anxiety Disorder

• Irrational fear and avoidance of social situations

• People believe they might embarrass or humiliate themselves

• Feel they will appear clumsy, foolish, or incompetent

3. Specific Phobia

• Marked fear of specific object or situation

• Catch-all category

• Any phobia other than agoraphobia and social phobia

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

• Anxiety disorder in which people suffer from recurrent obsession or compulsions, or both

• Obsession

  • Persistent, recurring, involuntary thought, image, impulse that invades consciousness

  • Causes great distress

• Compulsion

  • Persistent, irresistible irrational urge to perform an act or ritual repeatedly

• OCD

Somatic Symptom Disorders

• Disorders in which physical symptoms are present due to psychological rather than physical causes.

• Illness Anxiety Disorder (Hypochondriasis)

  • Disorder where persons are preoccupied with their health and convinced they have some serious disorder despite reassurances from doctors to the contrary.

• Conversion Disorder

  • Loss of motor or sensory functioning in some part of body

  • No physical cause

  • Due to psychological problem

• Dissociative Disorders

  • One loses integration of consciousness, identity, memories of important personal events

  • Occurs when under stress

• Dissociative Amnesia

  • A dissociative disorder in which there is loss of memory for limited periods in one’s life or for one’s entire personal identity

• Dissociative Fugue

  • One has complete loss of memory for one’s entire identity

  • May travel away from home

  • Might assume a new identity

• Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

  • Two or more distinct, unique personalities existing in same individuals;

  • Each takes over at different times

  • Also called multiple personality disorder

Schizophrenia

• Severe psychological disorder (1% population)

• Characterized by loss of contact with reality, hallucinations, delusions inappropriate or flat affect, some disturbance in thinking, social withdrawal, and/or bizarre behaviour

Positive (present) Symptoms of Schizophrenia

• Hallucinations (most frequently auditory)

• Delusions (false belief, grandeur or persecution)

• Disturbances or disorganization in thought or speech (can’t follow logical sequence)

• Inappropriate effect (emotional reactions don’t fit the circumstances).

Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia

• Apathy

• Social withdrawal

• Loss of motivation

• Lack of goal-directed behaviour

• Very limited speech

• Poor hygiene

• Poor problem solving ability

• Flat affect

Types of Schizophrenia

• Catatonic Schizophrenia

  • May display complete stillness, stupor, great excitement, agitation

  • Can remain motionless for hours without moving

• Disorganized Schizophrenia

  • Extreme social withdrawal, hallucinations, delusions, silliness, inappropriate laughter, grimaces, grotesque mannerisms, other bizarre behaviour.

• Paranoid Schizophrenia

  • Delusions of grandeur or persecution

  • Believe they are another person

  • Exaggerated anger or suspiciousness

• Undifferentiated Schizophrenia

  • Catch-all category

  • Used when symptoms do not conform to criteria of schizophrenia types

  • Or conform to more than one type

Causes of Schizophrenia

• Genetic Inheritance

• Excessive Dopamine Activity

• Gender

Chances of Developing Schizophrenia

Diathesis-Stress Model

• Genes are not destiny

• No one factor for genesis of schizophrenia

• Genetic predisposition toward disorder (diathesis)

• May develop disorder if subjected to sufficient environmental stress

Mood Disorders

• Disorder characterized by extreme and unwarranted disturbances in feeling or mood

• Depressive or manic episodes, or both

• Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

  • Mood disorder in which depression comes and goes with the seasons

• Bipolar Disorder

  • Person exhibits two radically different moods with relatively normal periods in between

• Manic Episode

  • Period of extreme elation, euphoria, hyperactivity.

  • Often accompanied by delusions of grandeur and hostility if activity blocked

Major Depressive Disorder

• Mood disorder characterized by feelings of great sadness, despair, guilt, worthless, hopelessness

• 8% hospital admissions

• In extreme cases suicidal

Causes of Depressive and Bipolar Disorders

• Genetic inheritance: 38 times more likely to develop major depressive disorder if a close relative had early onset depression

• Chemical imbalance: Three neurotransmitters play a major role in mood. Norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin are all produced in the Lymbic system and the hypothalamus in the brain.

• Cognitive Perspective: Depression is caused by distortions in thinking. Seeing everything in a negative light

Personality Disorders

• Continuing, inflexible, maladaptive pattern of inner experience and behaviour

• Causes great distress or impaired functioning

• Differs significantly from patterns expected in person’s culture

• (Paranoid, Narcissistic, and Histrionic are three types of personality disorders)

Paranoid

• Highly suspicious

• Untrusting, guarded

• Hypersensitive

• Easily slighted

• Lacking in emotion

• Holds grudges

Antisocial

• Callous disregard for rights and feelings of others (9% pop)

• Willing to break law, lie, cheat, exploit others for personal gain

• Manipulative, impulsive, selfish, aggressive, irresponsible, reckless

• Willing to break law, lie, cheat, exploit others personal gain

  • 50% of male prison population had this disorder

Narcissistic

• Exaggerated sense of self-importance and entitlement

• Self-centred, arrogant, demanding, exploitative, envious

• Craves admiration and attention

• Lacks empathy

Histrionic

• Seeks attention and approval

• Overly dramatic

• Self-centred

• Shallow

• Craves excitement

Borderline

• Unstable mood, behaviour, self-image, social relationships

• Intense fear of abandonment

• Impulsive and reckless behaviour

• Inappropriate anger

• Makes suicidal gestures

• Performs self-mutilating acts

Personality Disorders

• Cluster A: Odd behaviour

  • Paranoid

  • Schizoid

  • Schizotypal

• Cluster B: Erratic, overly dramatic behaviour

  • Narcissistic

  • Histrionic

  • Borderline

  • Antisocial

• Cluster C: Anxious, fearful behaviour

  • Obsessive-compulsive

  • Avoidant

  • Dependent

Chapter 10 - Mental illness in Court