The launch of legal psychology for the purpose of psychology
In 1916, Lewis Terman (1877-1956), a professor of psychology at Stanford University, applied psychology to law enforcement, heralding the launch of legal psychology psychology.
In 1843, Daniel McNaughten tried to assassinate the British prime minister, killing his secretary and putting him on trial. In explaining the motive for the assassination attempt, McNaughton said he was not the healthy person he used to be, unable to rest and suffering from insomnia because someone continued to follow him. This statement served as an opportunity to use insanity defense in the trial. Medical experts testified that McNaughton was insane, and as a result, jurors ruled him not guilty of insanity. In the wake of this trial, a standard for insanity defense was presented, which is called the ‘McNaughton standard’.
In 1908, Hugo Munsterberg, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, argued in a book called On the Witness Stand that lawyers should know psychology because there are many applications of psychology to the legal system. Many jurists and psychologists challenged Münsterberg’s claim at the time, as few psychological studies were conducted directly related to the legal system. Law scholars argued that Münsterberg’s opinion was exaggerated and that there was no data to support his argument about the problems of law, and psychologists insisted that the study of psychology should remain scientific and pure without thinking about applying it to the law.
Around the same time, attorney Louis Brandeis of the trial in the Oregon Supreme Court argued that Oregon’s law requiring women’s working hours to be limited to 10 hours makes sense. A preparatory document stating that long working hours are detrimental to women’s health and well-being. In English, it is referred to as brief), and as a result, Brandeis’s opinion was accepted.
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court’s trial of Brown v. Board of Education banned public schools from separating black and white children. In this historic trial, social psychologists submitted a preparatory document stating that black-and-white separation policies negatively affect the formation of black children’s self-esteem. Surprisingly, social science played a role in changing legal regulations for the first time as the contents of the preparatory document were cited as footnotes in the judgment of the trial.
Then, in 1968–69, the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) was organized and became the 41st branch of the American Psychology Society. This society publishes a journal called Law and Human Behavior. Since then, the American Board of Forensics Psychology has been organized.
In Korea, the Korean Legal Psychology Association was organized as the 12th branch under the Korean Psychology Association, and the purpose was to “promote psychology’s contribution to enhancing understanding of the law and the legal system through basic and applied research, promote bilateral education so that psychologists better understand legal problems, better understand psychological problems, and promote research, education, and volunteer work in the field of law and psychology to the general public.”