PSYC 3020 Chapter : psych of law.docx

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3020
• Professor: Dan Yarmey

Document Summary

Interactions between psychology and law can be formally traced to the middle of the 19th century. Since the 1940s psychologists have had extensive interactions with the courts and have had a heavy role in legal decision making and policy formation. Based on empirical evidence theory, and scientific method. Concerned with understanding, explaining, predicting, and control of causes of human behaviour and experience. Based on statutes and rulings, concerned with control of human behaviour and social justice. Reflect values, which are basic psychological concepts. Values are standards for decision making, thus laws created, amended/discarded based on society values on human behaviour. Growing trend for police/courts to use data from psychology to try to broaden understanding of legal issues. Justice dispensing machine (courts) checks to see if the enforcing machine has functioned properly, and given facts fed in it compares with stored laws kept on file. Then a decision is made: culprit processing machine (prisons) responsible for punishment/rehabilitation.