Project Title: Psychological Profiling
Essential Question(s):
- What makes a successful profile?
- What makes a successful application of a profile?
- What are the dangers of an unsuccessful profile and application of it?
Statement of Purpose
For my senior project, I will be studying psychological profiling through studying 2-3 cases, concepts, psychology, pathologies, and interview people in the legal field.
Overview: Describe your topic and project to the committee.
I will be studying psychological profiling, a combination of psychology and law and criminal justice, for my senior project. Over the summer, I took a psychological profiling class at Johns Hopkins University. I was fascinated to learn why spree and serial killers do what they do and how they become criminals. I want to take what I’ve learned over the summer and apply my learning to specific cases. I will start off by relearning important concepts and pathologies by reading articles, watching videos, listening to podcasts, etc. I also hope to study psychology to learn more about the mind and behavioral aspects of psychological profiling. Then I’ll study 3-4 cases in depth by watching documentaries, reading newspaper articles from the time, and more. I am choosing the Zodiac Killer case, the Unabomber, Michelle O’Keefe, and the Rachel Nickell case. By studying these cases, I hope to learn more about the application of techniques profilers use and what the process is like. By thinking critically about the application of techniques profiler’s use, I will be able to start to determine what makes a successful profile and application of it to a case. I’ll also be able to determine the dangers of an unsuccessful profile and its application of it to the case. Finally, I plan to engage others and get their initial ideas on the cases I’ll study and what they may know about psychological profiling in general. I also want to speak with professionals in the legal field to gain their insight into psychological profiling.
How will you measure your success?
The outcome from my project that I hope to arrive at is being able to argue why psychological profiling is useful and needed. Some argue that it isn’t useful and may be a waste of resources that can go somewhere else. However, I want to explore the pros of psychological profiling as well as the cons. I also have smaller goals such as: studying pathologies (how people become criminals) and gaining insight from legal experts about psychological profiling. Also, I hope to learn if this is something that I want to pursue as a career.
Resource List
My resources regarding psychology, I’ve got a syllabus from Wesleyan for a psychology class that I can follow as well as a free online class on edx titled the Psychology of Criminal Justice. Some podcasts that I’ve found are: Teens of Profiling, Introduction to Psychology by MIT, Psychology by Yale, Real Crime Profile, and Speaking of Psychology by the American Psychological Association. I’ve been in contact with a professor from Johns Hopkins who taught a course about psychological profiling. I also plan to connect with retired and hopefully active psychological profilers, including people from my local field office and James R. Fitzgerald (who worked on the Unabomber case). I also have additional resources regarding articles, studies, etc. For my book, I will be reading Psychology and The Legal System by Wrightsman.
Daily Plan & Schedule
My day-to-day schedule may change depending on what stage I am at in my process.
Here’s what I might do in a day when studying a case:
- Do preliminary research about my cases and take notes
- Read newspaper articles about the case
- Watch a documentary about the case
- Continue with psychology course and reading my book
- Listen to podcast about psychology
Here’s a basic outline of my weekly schedule:
Week 1:
-relearn material by listening to podcasts, watching videos, reading articles, etc. about psychological profiling
-following free lessons online, using a syllabus from Wesleyan, reading books, etc. study psychology
Week 2 + 3 +4:
-study each case per week; articles, documentaries, videos, watching interviews about cases, etc.
-also continue taking a psychology class
-record what I’ve learned about each case
-week 4- start sending out forms about my cases
Week 5 +6:
-conduct interviews with people in legal fields
-start to put everything together; interviews with people legal field and think about if psychological profiling is necessary
-possibly study how psychological profiling is conveyed in the media
-think about the dangers of profiling and the ways in which profilers can be held accountable
-wrap up everything
Documentation Plan
To document what I’ve been working on, I will write blog posts about what I’ve learned and create specific posts about each case that I’m working on. I think it will be interesting to write blog posts about the cases that I’ve learned to be able to share with the community. I will also list the resources I’ve been using for my specific cases in case anyone is interested in doing research themselves.
Material Needs
The materials I need are a workplace and internet access, all of which I have at home.