ABSTRACT

Psychology and law share common interests in the way people behave and the factors governing that behaviour. But the perspectives of psychology and law are different: psychology endeavours to describe and explain human behaviour and experience in scientific terms; the law is concerned with regulating behaviour and enforcing social prescriptions for the conduct of individuals and groups in Society. The law is a system of rules for application. Psychologists study rules as part of their effort to describe, explain and predict how people conduct their affairs; and, as part of that enterprise, psychologists are concerned with the assumptions which underlie legal norms and rules.