Psychology and introduction to criminology [DROIB150]

Learning outcomes

• Discern psychology as a specific field in the human sciences (in terms of its objects, approaches, methods, practices and issues) • Understand its differences and links with other humanities disciplines (sociology, history, ethnology, etc.) and in particular with law and criminology • To pose in a precise and nuanced way some fundamental problems in the psychological sciences (relationship between self and others, relationship between "normal" and "pathological", passage from childhood to adulthood, etc.). • To appropriate the psychological concepts and theories necessary for the formulation of these problems • Conceive the links between the psychological themes studied and some of their counterparts in the field of psychological criminology • To understand the specific field of psychological and clinical criminology • Understand the psychic (and social) processes underlying different delinquent or criminal (psycho)logics (crimes of passion, perverse crimes, antisocial acts, adolescent risk behaviour, etc.). • Adopt an epistemological and critical view of the issues addressed (by identifying their modes of elaboration, their scope and their limits) • Situate the issues under study (in this case psychological and criminological) in their historical, social, cultural and political context. • To measure the importance of the dialogue between the human sciences, its relevance, its usefulness and some of its privileged paths (here between the psychological sciences and the criminological and legal sciences) • Become familiar with in-depth reading of texts from related fields of law • To produce a work of personal appropriation, questioning and reflection on psychological and social issues concerning the student as a human being, as a student and as a citizen

Objectives

• To introduce the student to some of the major areas of psychology (developmental, clinical, cultural, social, political) and associated issues of psychological criminology. • To challenge their personal thinking on some of the key issues in these disciplines • Raise awareness of these areas and issues by addressing current themes that are important to society • To enable him/her to establish links between law and psychology, particularly through psychological criminology issues • To give them the means to project a personal and critical view on the themes addressed and the perspectives proposed • To lead him to situate psychology in its relationship with neighbouring disciplines in the humanities.

Content

Through the study of various themes (the construction of the first relationships with others, childhood, the acceptance of limits and rules, the adolescent passage, passions, forms of psychological equilibrium and imbalance, the influence of others and ideologies on the individual, the processes and psychosocial effects of collective disasters such as genocide), the course constitutes an introduction to some of the major domains of psychology (developmental, clinical, cultural, social and political psychology) and to related issues of psychological criminology. The course is structured in 8 chapters, each title of which takes the form of a question addressed by psychology. Each of these chapters leads to a criminological counterpart, where various problems of psychological and clinical criminology are developed.