Psychology, law and criminal justice
A few cases to show why it is important
A man who was in jail because his son told court that he was abused by his
father
o A lot of psychological concepts in this story
o A lot of things that were not proved
o It does a lot to people when they are accused of something they
haven’t done
In Belgium there are no wrongful convictions
o A sensitive topic
o A unique project à the benefit of the doubt (it is a collaboration)
o There was a case where the team were in the opinion of a wrongful
conviction
A good question is that a conviction is influenced by the manor of
interviewing
o Often, the interviewing is done in the best possible way
o It can be possible that there is a confession by the pressure of the
interviewer
Misidentification of a murderer
The liedetector or the polygraph
o It is used a lot in Belgium
o It leads to a lot of issues
o There are better ways to find lies
Legal psychology à it is all about behavioural phenomena
Reliability of testimony
Lying and deception detection
Professionals (judges, lawyers and police)
Important à how is evidence interpreted?
(zie kader op de pwp)
Psychologyà you do studies and based on the outcome of that, you do a
proposal to the judges an police
o Prospective à you want to gain new elements by doing studies and
experiments
o Nomothetic à you try to identify new general principles that might
guide us in an legal case
Example: trauma is important in the testimony
Legal psychology wants to combine the two perspectives
Legal psychology is sometimes confused with forensic psychology
In some countries there are the same but in Belgium there are differences
o legal: based on psychology Is based on thinking and making decisions
o forensic: clinical psychology à is the person guilty when they are
mentally ill?
There is overlap but there are differences but in other countries there is not
because they are considered the same
Timely topic
Interviewers can lie to their suspects à “I have evidence” when they have not
Why is this possible?
o à this is not the way that you should interview suspects
o à we will discover in the course
Weinstein: it is happened 20 years ago, how reliable are these accusations?
, Michael Jackson: the testimonies against him might be wrong but we never
really know
Steve Titus: a huge wrongfull conviction case
Nancy was raped and there was a huge line-up
o She identified Steve as the one who did it
o It was a suggestive line-up
Steve was convicted
o Edward lee king who was the real one
o They found it because of DNA but at the time the technology wasn’t
that good à after years it was improved so they found that Edward was the
real perpetrator
What is experimental research?
Researchers want to find something so they manipulate elements to discover
things
o For example, participants did slept well and participants did slept
awful
o à is there a difference between these two groups?
o Independent variable à manipulated variable (= sleep)
And if you find a difference, it is because of this variable
o Dependent variable: measured variable (=false confession)
There are different ways to measure this (EXAM!!!)
Between-subjects design
o = halve of a group will sleep normally and the other group are sleep-
deprived
o Two different groups and you manipulate sleep in this case
Whitin-subjects design
o = the whole group can sleep and a day later you are not allowed to
sleep
o The same participants are in the two conditions
Paul Ingram
Fall 1998
Ericka and Julie
Recovered memories of satanic abuse
o = a case where are people suddenly having a memory where they are
not aware of
The father thought that he had repressed the memories of the abuse
o Memories of slaughter of 25 babies
o Psychologists were confused of this case
Ofshe à Paul didn’t do anything, the memories are false
o he asked suggestive questions to see if it is a false story
it seems that Paul was to easy to influence by suggestive
questions
o Paul provided a full (false) account
Central park joggers case
5 young men were wrongfully convicted a woman in Central Park
o Trisha Melli
o Rape
, o She can’t identify the perpetrator because it was in the dark
o The men confessed that they raped Trisha
o BUT à the interviews were suggested for example: if you confess, you
can call your mother
o Also there was found DNA on the crime scene but it wasn’t the DNA
of these 5 men
o 5-15 years’ imprisonment
Matias Reyes did it
o Confessed in 2002
o DNA evidence proved his guilt
A brief history
There is not one clear line of history of psychology and law
This is an incomplete overview
1. It started as the psychology of testimony
At that time tis was an important one
In the 5th century before Christ à zie pwp
People were aware that testimonies can be false and also the confessions of
perpetrators
Hans Gross à KriminalPsychologie
o = psychology of eyewitnesses testimony
Munsterberg
o Still viewed as the most important book on psychology and law
o Was nog undisputed à controversial!!!
About women who can’t be jury members
Stern: psychologie der Aussage (statements, suggestibility and memory)
o Introduced as one of the first the drama experiment/ reality experiment
(staged event)
o His work is still relevant (zie pwp)
Von Lizst!
Binet wrote La Suggestibillité that was linked to the work of Stern
Psychologists such as Stern were Jewish wich was difficult during the period
of the Second World War
Triangle of Sporer
Three aspects of testimonies
o Truth
o Error
o Deception
o BUT: people can lie so how do you know the testimony is true or
false
People can think that their testimonies are true like Paul with
the abuse of his children
He really thought it was true
(zie pwp voor volgende punten)
, Tekst 1: lesson from the origin of eyewitness testimony research in Europe
Samenvatting: review of the psychology of eyewitness testimony and the progress
researches have made
o In the first 3 decades of the 20th century: eyewitness errors and intentional
distortions of the truth were studied
o Author proposes a integrative model of the psychology of testimony that may
help to organise past and future research
1.
Presentism: looking back from the perspective of the present goes with systematic
distortions (vertekeningen) , the same as hindsight bias in the cognitive illusions
literature
Whig interpretation: The view back, de neiging van historici om aan de kant van de
protestaten en whigs te schrijven, om revoluties te prijzen mits ze succesvol zijn
geweest, om bepaalde principes en vooruitgang in het verleden te benadrukken en om
een verhaal te produceren dat goedkeuring en verheerlijking van het heden is.
Whiggish vieuw example: Undeutsch description of the history of the psychology in
three phases:
A pre-experimental period
Experimental work
Establishment of expert psychological testimony in cases of child sexual abuse
4th period: ‘renaissance’ of experimental eyewitness research
these phases should be solely conceived of as a chronological organisational structure.
1. Munsterberg: development and compare his contribution to Stern and Binet, by
taken a closer look at het origins of the psychology of testimony in Central Eurotope
until WO2
At the beginning there was a broader conception of eyewitness testimony that
encompassed both unintentional (error and suggestion) and intentional (lies)
distortions of the truth. Many of these early researchers also strived to
understand individual differences and to explore methods to improve
eyewitness testimony.
2. Today, we can still learn some lessons from the theoretical concepts and the
methods employed in these times.
3. At the end, I integrate both past and present research on eyewitness issues in a
model of eyewitness testimony.
4. Finally, I state ten theses derived from my (personal) interpretation of a 100 years
of studying the psychology of eyewitness testimony.
MUNSTERBERG, STERN OR BINET: WHO WAS THE ‘FOUNDER’ OF THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF TESTIMONY?
Munsterberg as the founding father of psychology and law
A few cases to show why it is important
A man who was in jail because his son told court that he was abused by his
father
o A lot of psychological concepts in this story
o A lot of things that were not proved
o It does a lot to people when they are accused of something they
haven’t done
In Belgium there are no wrongful convictions
o A sensitive topic
o A unique project à the benefit of the doubt (it is a collaboration)
o There was a case where the team were in the opinion of a wrongful
conviction
A good question is that a conviction is influenced by the manor of
interviewing
o Often, the interviewing is done in the best possible way
o It can be possible that there is a confession by the pressure of the
interviewer
Misidentification of a murderer
The liedetector or the polygraph
o It is used a lot in Belgium
o It leads to a lot of issues
o There are better ways to find lies
Legal psychology à it is all about behavioural phenomena
Reliability of testimony
Lying and deception detection
Professionals (judges, lawyers and police)
Important à how is evidence interpreted?
(zie kader op de pwp)
Psychologyà you do studies and based on the outcome of that, you do a
proposal to the judges an police
o Prospective à you want to gain new elements by doing studies and
experiments
o Nomothetic à you try to identify new general principles that might
guide us in an legal case
Example: trauma is important in the testimony
Legal psychology wants to combine the two perspectives
Legal psychology is sometimes confused with forensic psychology
In some countries there are the same but in Belgium there are differences
o legal: based on psychology Is based on thinking and making decisions
o forensic: clinical psychology à is the person guilty when they are
mentally ill?
There is overlap but there are differences but in other countries there is not
because they are considered the same
Timely topic
Interviewers can lie to their suspects à “I have evidence” when they have not
Why is this possible?
o à this is not the way that you should interview suspects
o à we will discover in the course
Weinstein: it is happened 20 years ago, how reliable are these accusations?
, Michael Jackson: the testimonies against him might be wrong but we never
really know
Steve Titus: a huge wrongfull conviction case
Nancy was raped and there was a huge line-up
o She identified Steve as the one who did it
o It was a suggestive line-up
Steve was convicted
o Edward lee king who was the real one
o They found it because of DNA but at the time the technology wasn’t
that good à after years it was improved so they found that Edward was the
real perpetrator
What is experimental research?
Researchers want to find something so they manipulate elements to discover
things
o For example, participants did slept well and participants did slept
awful
o à is there a difference between these two groups?
o Independent variable à manipulated variable (= sleep)
And if you find a difference, it is because of this variable
o Dependent variable: measured variable (=false confession)
There are different ways to measure this (EXAM!!!)
Between-subjects design
o = halve of a group will sleep normally and the other group are sleep-
deprived
o Two different groups and you manipulate sleep in this case
Whitin-subjects design
o = the whole group can sleep and a day later you are not allowed to
sleep
o The same participants are in the two conditions
Paul Ingram
Fall 1998
Ericka and Julie
Recovered memories of satanic abuse
o = a case where are people suddenly having a memory where they are
not aware of
The father thought that he had repressed the memories of the abuse
o Memories of slaughter of 25 babies
o Psychologists were confused of this case
Ofshe à Paul didn’t do anything, the memories are false
o he asked suggestive questions to see if it is a false story
it seems that Paul was to easy to influence by suggestive
questions
o Paul provided a full (false) account
Central park joggers case
5 young men were wrongfully convicted a woman in Central Park
o Trisha Melli
o Rape
, o She can’t identify the perpetrator because it was in the dark
o The men confessed that they raped Trisha
o BUT à the interviews were suggested for example: if you confess, you
can call your mother
o Also there was found DNA on the crime scene but it wasn’t the DNA
of these 5 men
o 5-15 years’ imprisonment
Matias Reyes did it
o Confessed in 2002
o DNA evidence proved his guilt
A brief history
There is not one clear line of history of psychology and law
This is an incomplete overview
1. It started as the psychology of testimony
At that time tis was an important one
In the 5th century before Christ à zie pwp
People were aware that testimonies can be false and also the confessions of
perpetrators
Hans Gross à KriminalPsychologie
o = psychology of eyewitnesses testimony
Munsterberg
o Still viewed as the most important book on psychology and law
o Was nog undisputed à controversial!!!
About women who can’t be jury members
Stern: psychologie der Aussage (statements, suggestibility and memory)
o Introduced as one of the first the drama experiment/ reality experiment
(staged event)
o His work is still relevant (zie pwp)
Von Lizst!
Binet wrote La Suggestibillité that was linked to the work of Stern
Psychologists such as Stern were Jewish wich was difficult during the period
of the Second World War
Triangle of Sporer
Three aspects of testimonies
o Truth
o Error
o Deception
o BUT: people can lie so how do you know the testimony is true or
false
People can think that their testimonies are true like Paul with
the abuse of his children
He really thought it was true
(zie pwp voor volgende punten)
, Tekst 1: lesson from the origin of eyewitness testimony research in Europe
Samenvatting: review of the psychology of eyewitness testimony and the progress
researches have made
o In the first 3 decades of the 20th century: eyewitness errors and intentional
distortions of the truth were studied
o Author proposes a integrative model of the psychology of testimony that may
help to organise past and future research
1.
Presentism: looking back from the perspective of the present goes with systematic
distortions (vertekeningen) , the same as hindsight bias in the cognitive illusions
literature
Whig interpretation: The view back, de neiging van historici om aan de kant van de
protestaten en whigs te schrijven, om revoluties te prijzen mits ze succesvol zijn
geweest, om bepaalde principes en vooruitgang in het verleden te benadrukken en om
een verhaal te produceren dat goedkeuring en verheerlijking van het heden is.
Whiggish vieuw example: Undeutsch description of the history of the psychology in
three phases:
A pre-experimental period
Experimental work
Establishment of expert psychological testimony in cases of child sexual abuse
4th period: ‘renaissance’ of experimental eyewitness research
these phases should be solely conceived of as a chronological organisational structure.
1. Munsterberg: development and compare his contribution to Stern and Binet, by
taken a closer look at het origins of the psychology of testimony in Central Eurotope
until WO2
At the beginning there was a broader conception of eyewitness testimony that
encompassed both unintentional (error and suggestion) and intentional (lies)
distortions of the truth. Many of these early researchers also strived to
understand individual differences and to explore methods to improve
eyewitness testimony.
2. Today, we can still learn some lessons from the theoretical concepts and the
methods employed in these times.
3. At the end, I integrate both past and present research on eyewitness issues in a
model of eyewitness testimony.
4. Finally, I state ten theses derived from my (personal) interpretation of a 100 years
of studying the psychology of eyewitness testimony.
MUNSTERBERG, STERN OR BINET: WHO WAS THE ‘FOUNDER’ OF THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF TESTIMONY?
Munsterberg as the founding father of psychology and law
