FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY EXAM 1 REVIEW
QUESTIONS AND VERIFIED SOLUTIONS LATEST
UPDATE 2026
Forensic Psychology
a field of psychology that deals with all aspects of human behavior as it relates to the
law or legal system
3 categories of killers according to Browning (in Police Battalion 101 during the
Holocaust)
1. Laggers
2. Accommodators
3. Evaders
What do we turn to for explanation of the behavior of Police Battalion 101 killers?
Social psychology (personality psychology looked at people as individuals and not a
group)
Factors from social psychology that Browning used to explain the behavior of Police
Battalion 101 killers:
1. Solomon Asch conformity experiment
2. Milgram Experiment
,3. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment
4. Cognitive Dissonance
Solomon Asch conformity experiment
In 1955, psychologist Solomon Asch devised this simple study to research conformity.
Each person in the room had to state aloud which comparison line (A, B or C) was most
like the target line. The answer was always obvious. The real participant sat at the end
of the row and gave his or her answer last.
There were 18 trials in total, and the confederates gave the wrong answer on 12 trails
(called the critical trials). Asch was interested to see if the real participant would conform
to the majority view.
Milgram Experiment
An experiment devised in 1961 by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, to
see how far ordinary people would go to obey a scientific authority figure. People would
shock a "learner" because they were told to by an authority figure even though that
person was in a lot of pain.
Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment
an experiment in which people were assigned to be guards or prisoners- studied how
drastically behaviors can change under certain influences
3 groups
1. Good guards
2. Obedient guards
3. Tormenting guards
,Cognitive Dissonance
Attitudes and behaviors have to align otherwise there's discomfort (ex: smoking)
Festinger experiment paid people to recruit their friends for different sums of money and
asked the people how boring they thought task was which varied with amount of money
being paid
In Milgram's experiment the participants were asked what they think of the learner
before and after the situation and they somehow had a negative view of the learner after
the situation even though they didn't really interact because they wanted to justify their
actions
Men were transformed by what they did, they became antisemitic because they had to
justify their actions to avoid cognitive dissonance
Criticisms of studying social psychology to explain Police Battalion 101 behaviors:
1. These findings are not deterministic and do not remove individual responsibility
2. There were individual differences at play in Milgram and Zimbardo's experiments
3. These findings allow us to make predictions regarding groups but individuals are not
relieved of their individual responsibility for the decisions they make
Situationism
The situation dictates behavior
Mischel (1968) - traits aren't useful predictors, we overestimate behavioral consistency,
situation is more important, personality assessment is a waste of time
, Person
Situationism is based on lab studies which might make people behave differently, traits
clearly exist
Argument to Mischel:
Unfair literature review, situationism is based on lab studies, .4 is not a small correlation,
Allport's lexical hypothesis
Interactionism
Buss (1977) argued that people and situations interact in 3 different ways:
1. Effect of personality depends on situation
2. People find themselves in situations because of their personality, situational selection
and evocation
3. People change situations by how they act and what they do in these situations
(manipulation)
Situational Selection
to choose the situations in which one finds itself
Evocation
certain personality traits may evoke specific responses from the environment
QUESTIONS AND VERIFIED SOLUTIONS LATEST
UPDATE 2026
Forensic Psychology
a field of psychology that deals with all aspects of human behavior as it relates to the
law or legal system
3 categories of killers according to Browning (in Police Battalion 101 during the
Holocaust)
1. Laggers
2. Accommodators
3. Evaders
What do we turn to for explanation of the behavior of Police Battalion 101 killers?
Social psychology (personality psychology looked at people as individuals and not a
group)
Factors from social psychology that Browning used to explain the behavior of Police
Battalion 101 killers:
1. Solomon Asch conformity experiment
2. Milgram Experiment
,3. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment
4. Cognitive Dissonance
Solomon Asch conformity experiment
In 1955, psychologist Solomon Asch devised this simple study to research conformity.
Each person in the room had to state aloud which comparison line (A, B or C) was most
like the target line. The answer was always obvious. The real participant sat at the end
of the row and gave his or her answer last.
There were 18 trials in total, and the confederates gave the wrong answer on 12 trails
(called the critical trials). Asch was interested to see if the real participant would conform
to the majority view.
Milgram Experiment
An experiment devised in 1961 by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, to
see how far ordinary people would go to obey a scientific authority figure. People would
shock a "learner" because they were told to by an authority figure even though that
person was in a lot of pain.
Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment
an experiment in which people were assigned to be guards or prisoners- studied how
drastically behaviors can change under certain influences
3 groups
1. Good guards
2. Obedient guards
3. Tormenting guards
,Cognitive Dissonance
Attitudes and behaviors have to align otherwise there's discomfort (ex: smoking)
Festinger experiment paid people to recruit their friends for different sums of money and
asked the people how boring they thought task was which varied with amount of money
being paid
In Milgram's experiment the participants were asked what they think of the learner
before and after the situation and they somehow had a negative view of the learner after
the situation even though they didn't really interact because they wanted to justify their
actions
Men were transformed by what they did, they became antisemitic because they had to
justify their actions to avoid cognitive dissonance
Criticisms of studying social psychology to explain Police Battalion 101 behaviors:
1. These findings are not deterministic and do not remove individual responsibility
2. There were individual differences at play in Milgram and Zimbardo's experiments
3. These findings allow us to make predictions regarding groups but individuals are not
relieved of their individual responsibility for the decisions they make
Situationism
The situation dictates behavior
Mischel (1968) - traits aren't useful predictors, we overestimate behavioral consistency,
situation is more important, personality assessment is a waste of time
, Person
Situationism is based on lab studies which might make people behave differently, traits
clearly exist
Argument to Mischel:
Unfair literature review, situationism is based on lab studies, .4 is not a small correlation,
Allport's lexical hypothesis
Interactionism
Buss (1977) argued that people and situations interact in 3 different ways:
1. Effect of personality depends on situation
2. People find themselves in situations because of their personality, situational selection
and evocation
3. People change situations by how they act and what they do in these situations
(manipulation)
Situational Selection
to choose the situations in which one finds itself
Evocation
certain personality traits may evoke specific responses from the environment
