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Crime and Social Psychology (Level 5)

Overview

  • Credit value: 30 credits at Level 5
  • Convenor and tutor: Dr Lizzie Hughes
  • Assessment: an 800-word and 1000-word learning log (20% and 30%) and a 10-12-minute in-class poster presentation (50%)

Module description

In this interdisciplinary module we critically explore social psychology in relation to crime, the criminal justice system and harm. We provide a critical overview of social psychology and explore how it can contribute to furthering our understanding of criminological issues. We engage with a variety of learning materials, such as academic journals and books, podcasts, films, news media reports and more.

Indicative syllabus

  • Critical approaches to social psychology: how can we use social psychology to understand criminological issues?
  • Interrogating obedience: why do mass atrocities (e.g. genocides and holocausts) happen? Can we stop them?
  • The psychologies of protest and activism
  • The psychologies of empire: how is 'race' constructed in relation to crime and psychology?
  • Criminalised sex: studying the pathologisation of queerness and kink in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
  • Neurodiversity, capitalism and anti-psychiatry movements
  • The regulation of risk: how is artificial intelligence (AI) used in the surveillance of forensic mental health? What benefits and problems does this present?
  • Psychologies of our surveillance culture: how does it feel to be watched?
  • Digital psychologies: studying online hate, misinformation and digital propaganda

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • understand the relationship between criminology and critical social psychology, including its histories and tensions
  • engage in critical social psychological and critical criminological debates about key contemporary issues that are relevant to everyday life
  • understand critical social psychological perspectives in relation to harm, crime, punishment and justice
  • apply intersectional theories to criminology and critical social psychology.