PSYC 3020 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Polygraph, Falsifiability, Franz Liszt

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

Document Summary

Law: sum of all rules governing behavior that is enforceable in courts: law reflects values, values are basic psychological concepts. Legal psychology: concerned with evidence, witnesses and the courts. Forensic psychology is a combination of legal and criminal psychology. Criminal justice system functions like a series of machines (toch 1961: law passing machine (the government, enforcing machine (the police, justice dispensing machine (the courts) Checks that the enforcing machine has done its job properly: culprit-processing machine (punishment and rehabilitation) In reality it is not a machine, it"s a human project. Forensic psychology seeks to facilitate the various branches of the justice system through objective analyses, recommendations and treatment of factors that may detract from the objectivity of the legal process. James mckeen cattell first experiments with psychology of eyewitness testimony: asked people to recall things from their everyday life (answers often incorrect) Alfred binet: testimony given by children was highly susceptible to suggestive questioning techniques.