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Social psychology attempts to understand the behavior of individuals in everyday social settings. One social setting with which most people have some experience is the legal system. The legal system is of interest for several different reasons. First, the legal system is designed to control how people interact. As such, it makes a wide range of assumptions about human nature in its attempts to control social interaction. For example, it makes the assumption that prison time serves as a punishment and that the threat of prison time will deter people from engaging in behavior that violates the law. Second, the legal system is a social setting to which many different social psychological principles and theories should apply. Thus, the legal system can be used as a testing ground for models of human social behavior. For example, theories of memory can be tested in settings in which people are eyewitnesses to criminal activity and then have to recall what they saw or identify whom they saw. Third, the legal system is an intact social system consisting of the behavior of different categories of people, e.g., criminals, lawyers, judges, probation officers, jurors, prison guards, forensic psychologists, and so on. We can attempt to understand the causal processes and mechanisms that control the behavior of these participants. For example, how do judges decide how much bail to set? How do criminals decide whether to plea bargaining or go to trial? To what extent does pre-trial publicity affect the ability of jurors to be fair and impartial? How valid are polygraph examiner’s decisions? When should we accept delayed accusations of sexual abuse during childhood? Psychology and the Law provides an introduction to the interface between psychology and the law. It assumes that the student is familiar with psychology, especially, experimental psychology. It also assumes that students have had some exposure to social psychology or sociology. Because the class explores how psychology and the legal system are linked together, some of the material that is covered involves learning how the legal system functions as well as key issues in the law. At the same time, it is a class that emphasizes methodology and critical thinking. Other social systems can be approached in a manner similar to the legal system. The health system is one example. Social work and child protective services is another example. The education system is still another example. We can examine each of these social systems from a psychological perspective. For example, we can ask whether the assumptions made by the educational system about how children learn are consistent with psychological theories and data. We can ask what factors determine how child protective service workers decide whether to remove a child from his or her parents’ home. That is, we can examine how psychology and social policy overlap. Psychology and Social Policy examines social policies from the point of view of the assumptions that different policies make about human nature. Many polices make assumptions about factors that control the behavior of individuals. For example, some argue that welfare payments increase the odds the young women will have children out of wedlock. Others argue that intelligence (or the lack of it) is a major cause of crime. Some argue that affirmative action is a good idea. One claim in support of affirmative action is that standardized tests used to select individuals for school admission and for jobs are racially biased. These are all behavioral predictions that can be empirically tested. In this class, we critically analyze the claims that underlie various social policies to determine which are based on empirically testable assumptions and which on value judgments. We ask what evidence might test different theoretical claims. Then we examine the evidence that exists in support or against those claims. The primary goal of the this class to teach how empirical psychological analysis provides a firm basis to evaluate social policy. |
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Upper Division Lecture Classes |
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To what extent does pre-trial publicity prevent jurors from being fair and impartial? |
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You can contact Dr. Ebbesen at any of the following: |