PSYO 252 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Homicide, Filicide, Elizabeth Loftus
6 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
March 19th, 2018 Psychology 252: Law
• Psychopathy
o Selfish orientation
o Profound emotional deficit
o Little or no conscience
• History of Psychopathy
o Phillipe Pinel described: maine sans delire
▪ Was a psychiatrist
o Sociologists described: sociopathy
▪ Correct term is psychopathy
▪ Sociopath was created to address the fact that they were partially form as a
person from their environment
o Cleckley described: our current conception (ie. Interpersonally arrogant, grandiose,
emotional deficit)
• Measuring Psychopathy
o Dr. Robert Hare developed the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL)
o WE now use an updated version, Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R)
• PCL-R
o 20 items
o 3-point scale (score of 0, 1, 2)
o 30/40 is a traditionally pure psychopath cut off point
o Structured interview and then assessment
• Factor 1: Interpersonal/Emotional
o Glibness/Superficial Charm
o Grandiose sense of self-worth
o Pathological lying
o Conning/Manipulative
o Lack of remorse or guilt
o Shallow affect
o Callous/lack of empathy
o Failure to accept responsibility
• Factor 2: Behavioural
o Need for stimulation
o Parasitic lifestyle
o Poor behavioural controls
o Early behavioural problems
o Lack of realistic, long-term goals
o Impulsivity
o Irresponsibility
o Juvenile Delinquency
o Revocation of conditional release
• Factor 3 (?): Independent (do not load on stated factors)
o Promiscuous sexual behaviour
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o Many short-term marital relationships
o Criminal versatility
• Prevalence
o 1% of the population
o Associated with males, drug dependence. Antisocial personality disorder, violent
behavior
o 20% of male offenders in North America
• Psychopathy, APD, Sociopathy
o Psychopathy: behavioural and affective components
o APD: based on behavioural assessment
o Sociopathy: ati-soiety ie, idiiduals a produt of the eiroet, soiopathi
personality disorder
• Figure 12.1 – We use common law & use president
• Miranda Rights (if arrested in the states) | Canadian Rights (if arrested in Canada, obviously)
• Criminal Offenses
o Summary Offences: Minor crimes, smaller disturbances. Accused appears before a
provincial court judge
▪ Less than 6 months
o Indictable Offences: Serious crimes (ie. Theft, murder, B&E, etc.). Accused can appear
before a provincial court judge OR judge and jury in a superior court
▪ You have a choice & this will be for longer than 6 months
• Canadian Justice System
o Jail: 2 years less a day (provincial facility) – probation
o Prison: 2 years or more (federal facility) – parole
• Eyewitness Testimony
o 77,000 charges are made in the United States based on eyewitness testimony
o Eyewitness Testimony is powerful because
▪ Lack of knowledge about human memory
▪ Often influenced be confidence of witness, which is actually unrelated to
accuracy
o The Innocence Project in the United States has overturned more than 300 wrongful
cases
o 75% of which, relied on faulty eyewitness accounts
o Estimated 4,500 mistaken convictions each year
• Eyewitness Testimony
o System Variables: Type of questioning done by the police, nature of the lineup,
presence or absence of videotaping
▪ Preventable
o Estimator Variables: Environmental factors, lighting, exposure, weapon present
▪ Unpreventable
o Weapon-Focus Effect: The presence of a weapon to draw attention and impair a
itesss aility to identify the culprit
o Own-Race Identification Bias: People are more accurate at recognizing members of
their own racial group
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
