CH1 - The Legal Context
A legal psychologist is concerned with the first legal question of art. 350 Sv.; a forensic
psychologist with the third and fourth question.
How do we establish perpetratorship? Despite the legal context, it is not by legal expertise.
And it is not by absolute fact finding, as would be the case in scientific research. It is more like
a historical endeavor: the judge decides whether there is enough incriminating evidence
(gathered by police in a casefile) to convict the suspect. As long as there are at least two pieces
of independent incriminating evidence the judge is free to display some cherry picking to
favour these over potential pieces of exonerating evidence.
In our inquisitorial system, experts are hired by the court and are thus expected to deliver
unbiased quality content. The system is truth-centred.
In an adversarial system, both parties (defence and prosecution) can bring their own
experts. This system seems to be more sensitive to biased and skewed expert writing.
Civil procedures in the Netherlands have an adversarial system, because fact finding is not
the main concern; it is to decide who is the most right. Information not included in either
party's claims will not be discussed. The legal facts can be remote from the factual truth, as
long as both parties agree on it.
CH2 - Psychological Science
The 4 concurrent approaches in psychology are:
1. Psychodynamics (Freud: the 5 predetermined stages; id(es)-ego(ich)-superego(Überich)/
the unconscious; defence mechanisms; indirect/projective techniques);
2. Behaviourism (overt behaviour; Ockham's razor; Darwinism; tabula rasa; Pavlov’s classical
conditioning; the mere exposure hypothesis; Skinner’s operant conditioning);
Thorndike's law of effect: the idea that behaviour can be shaped with reward and
punishment. Successful application requires that the test subject perceives a causal
relation between behaviour and consequence. Five circumstances that make such
perception likely are: covariation, chronology, contiguity (closeness in time), similarity
(equality of cause and effect, proportionality in harshness), and absence of alternative
causes.
The punitive goal of deterrence is rooted in behavioural principles (specific and
general prevention by vicarious learning/modelling).
3. Cognitivism (midway between behaviourism and opening the black box of the mind;
memory; perception; language)
Dogs that were punished with inescapable shocks would at some point become
apathic and stop attempting to escape at all (learned helplessness), thus only measuring
overt behaviour (behaviourism) wasn’t enough to explain everything;
4. Neuroscience. Neuroscientific journals have a relatively high impact factor, at least in 1999.
Even though this approach is very popular, one must be careful with interpreting for
example fMRI and EEG data (physiological measures), the correlation between brain
activity and related behaviour might not be as strong as we think - there could be an
overlooked high percentage of false positives because each pixel of the fMRI reflects a
statistical test. Additionally, not nearly all psychological concepts have biological
counterparts.
Popper: confirmation does not count as evidence, except for when it’s the result of a failed attempt
to falsify and it concerns a wild, risky prediction.
A legal psychologist is concerned with the first legal question of art. 350 Sv.; a forensic
psychologist with the third and fourth question.
How do we establish perpetratorship? Despite the legal context, it is not by legal expertise.
And it is not by absolute fact finding, as would be the case in scientific research. It is more like
a historical endeavor: the judge decides whether there is enough incriminating evidence
(gathered by police in a casefile) to convict the suspect. As long as there are at least two pieces
of independent incriminating evidence the judge is free to display some cherry picking to
favour these over potential pieces of exonerating evidence.
In our inquisitorial system, experts are hired by the court and are thus expected to deliver
unbiased quality content. The system is truth-centred.
In an adversarial system, both parties (defence and prosecution) can bring their own
experts. This system seems to be more sensitive to biased and skewed expert writing.
Civil procedures in the Netherlands have an adversarial system, because fact finding is not
the main concern; it is to decide who is the most right. Information not included in either
party's claims will not be discussed. The legal facts can be remote from the factual truth, as
long as both parties agree on it.
CH2 - Psychological Science
The 4 concurrent approaches in psychology are:
1. Psychodynamics (Freud: the 5 predetermined stages; id(es)-ego(ich)-superego(Überich)/
the unconscious; defence mechanisms; indirect/projective techniques);
2. Behaviourism (overt behaviour; Ockham's razor; Darwinism; tabula rasa; Pavlov’s classical
conditioning; the mere exposure hypothesis; Skinner’s operant conditioning);
Thorndike's law of effect: the idea that behaviour can be shaped with reward and
punishment. Successful application requires that the test subject perceives a causal
relation between behaviour and consequence. Five circumstances that make such
perception likely are: covariation, chronology, contiguity (closeness in time), similarity
(equality of cause and effect, proportionality in harshness), and absence of alternative
causes.
The punitive goal of deterrence is rooted in behavioural principles (specific and
general prevention by vicarious learning/modelling).
3. Cognitivism (midway between behaviourism and opening the black box of the mind;
memory; perception; language)
Dogs that were punished with inescapable shocks would at some point become
apathic and stop attempting to escape at all (learned helplessness), thus only measuring
overt behaviour (behaviourism) wasn’t enough to explain everything;
4. Neuroscience. Neuroscientific journals have a relatively high impact factor, at least in 1999.
Even though this approach is very popular, one must be careful with interpreting for
example fMRI and EEG data (physiological measures), the correlation between brain
activity and related behaviour might not be as strong as we think - there could be an
overlooked high percentage of false positives because each pixel of the fMRI reflects a
statistical test. Additionally, not nearly all psychological concepts have biological
counterparts.
Popper: confirmation does not count as evidence, except for when it’s the result of a failed attempt
to falsify and it concerns a wild, risky prediction.
