The early history of forensic psychology

Dr. John Denboer has used his extensive knowledge in forensic psychology to help young people in the juvenile justice system. For this blog, he discusses the early history of forensic psychology.

While forensic psychology has only gained popularity in the past three decades because of mainstream media and pop culture, the practice began over a century ago.

In 1879 Wilhelm Wundt, the father of psychology, established his first lab in Germany. This led several top researchers in the field to contribute their work to the new practice of forensic psychology.

One such researcher was James McKeen Cattell, who was among the first to use the psychology of testimony by asking a series of questions to Columbia University students, then further having them rate how confident they were with their answers. Cattell found that the

answers were inaccurate at best. Other psychologists soon followed suit and applied their findings to eyewitness testimony issues. Dr. John Denboer explains that it was apparent that psychology could indeed be used to determine whether certain testimonies were useful.

Alfred Binet was a notable observer of Cattell, and he further developed the use of psychology in the realm of law and criminal justice, as well as intelligence testing.

Dr. John Denboer also mentions William Stern, who focused on the ability of witnesses to remember situations clearly. In his experiments, he found several errors among witnesses observing the same thing.