Description

This course focuses on applications of psychological research and practice to the legal system. Drawing from the areas of social, cognitive, developmental, clinical, and neuropsychology, students will critically examine the legal process and compare the law's informal theories of human behavior to what psychologists know on the basis of theories and research. Topics covered include including the practice of scientific jury selection, jury deliberation and decision-making, police interrogations and confessions, use of the polygraph as a lie-detector test, eyewitness testimony, repressed and recovered memories, the use of hypnosis, child witnesses in sex abuse cases, the death penalty, the insanity defense, and the role of psychologists as trial consultants and expert witnesses.