PSY 3520 PBC

PSY 3520—Social Psychology of Justice

Three Semester Hours

MA 5/19

Prerequisites

University Requisite: 6 Hours in PSY including 101D or 1010

Course Overview

this course is designed to make you think about the fundamental nature of justice and laws. What determines whether we believe a behavior or policy is just or unjust To what extent does the Anglo-American legal system reflect people’s intuitions about justice? Are there places in which the American legal system is at odds with the conceptions o freedom and justice that underlie our Constitution and Bill of Rights?

Methods of Course Instruction

All material for this course is print-based. Instructor and students communicate and exchange materials through postal mail. You may submit your assignments as e-mail attachments, but your graded assignments will be returned to you by postal mail.

Textbooks and Supplies

• Greene, Edie and Kirk Heilbrun. Wrightman’s Psychology and the Legal System. 9th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2018. [ISBN: 9781337762908]

Number of Lessons

The course has eight lessons, including a midcourse examination and a final examination. These lessons include:

• Lesson 1: The Nature and Importance of Laws
• Lesson 2: Theories of Crime and Eyewitness Testimony 
• Lesson 3: Psychology of Crime Victims and Evaluating Suspects 
• Lesson 4: Midcourse Examination     
• Lesson 5: Steps Between Arrest and Trial 
• Lesson 6: Forensic Assessment in Civil Cases and Trial Preparation
• Lesson 7: Jurors, Juries, and Punishments 
• Lesson 8: Final Examination

Types of Writing Assignments

Each lesson writing assignment will contain numerous questions you will be asked to answer six. There are two components to an answer that receives an “A” grade. First, it should demonstrate that you have carefully read and understood the material, and second, it should include your own opinion or point of view. You can go even one step further by doing a little research on your own outside of the assigned readings.

Grading Criteria

Your final grade for the course will be weighted on the following factors:

• Lesson Assignments — 10% each
• Midcourse Exam — 20%
• Final Exam — 20%