PSYCHOLOGY AND FORENSIC NEUROSCIENCE

Know how to apply psychological and neuroscientific concepts and constructs to the legal-forensic field

Know how to choose appropriate tools for psychological expert reports

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR FOREIGN (ERASMUS) STUDENTS:

THE COURSE WILL MAKE REFERENCES TO THE LEGAL SYSTEM, BOTH CRIMINAL AND CIVIL, IN USE IN ITALY. IT MAY THEREFORE BE UNSUITABLE FOR STUDENTS WHO WILL HAVE TO DO PSYCHOLOGICAL WORK IN OTHER COUNTRIES, WITH DIFFERENT LEGAL SYSTEMS.

The course aims to trace the history of forensic psychology up to the recent contributions of neuroscience, whose recent scientific developments will be presented.

The notions of responsibility and “capacity to understand” will be explored in depth, showing the psychological and neuroscientific tools for assessing these aspects in judicial procedures.

Specific in-depth topics are:

- The protection of the child at risk and the interventions of the psychological profession for this purpose.

- Psychology in civil law: separation and divorce, custody and adoption, gender change

- The organization of the Italian legal system and the spaces for psychology and neuroscience

The materials to be studied for the exam will be posted by the lecturer on the Studium platform, including those useful for in-depth study of choice, and the student can freely download them.

For the general mandatory part of the program, the downloadable materials from Studium cover:

1.     Background material: selected chapters from the book “Prigionieri delle neuroscienze,” and other texts, with an appendix on the tasks of psychological experts in the Italian justice system.

2     The gene in the court: between imputability and social dangerousness 

3.     Unraveling simulations: contributions of neuroscience to the search for judicial truth

4.     Adolescents, addiction and social recovery: the new frontiers of “cognitive” law 

For the in-depth part of the program:

Supplementary teaching materials, with links to freely downloadable articles, on which to report on the exam will also be provided on Studium.

From these, the student will be able to choose an in-depth study to present on the exam:

- Does the children know what they are doing? Consciousness and responsibility in childhood: between law and neuroscience

- Family change: psycho-social aspects and legal issues

- "Acrobats poised on the edge of a provisional identity": the responses of law and psychology to demands for gender change

- Bigenitoriality in separations

Only one of these articles must be chosen for the exam, but also from other bibliographic materials independently found by the student on the  Web, and preliminary agreed with the lecturer.

Oral examination with the possibility of personal insights on materials provided by the lecturer on the Studium platform.

The ability of the student to connect the topics covered in the course, in an organic view of psychology applied to the forensic field, as well as the deepening of specific issues on the materials and/or with personal research will be evaluated.