Media Selection #3

Criminal Minds

Television Series

2009

Retrieved April 22, 2010

Science of Psychology

Criminal Minds is an american television series about an FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. The BAU is a team of detectives, psychologists, analysts, and researchers who use psychology to profile the unknown subjects to help solve cases.The BAU studies the evidence and MO to create a profile on the killer .In the episode, "Pleasure is My Business", the BAU is profiling an escort who is killing off her clients. The BAU profile's the un-sub and finds out that she is most likely killing clients because they are walking out on their families. This anger towards men stems from the fact that the killers father walked out on her and her mother for an escort when she was young. Eventually, the BAU formulated enough of a profile on the killer to catch her.

I chose this as one of my media reports because it demonstrates the use of science in a psychological way. The BAU creates a psychological profile based on what they know about the crime scene and the way the crime was committed. The BAU uses different psychological theories, perspectives, and analysis to solve crimes. In chapter 1 we learned about the science of psychology. The members of the BAU are all trained in psychology and know how to use psychological science to solve crimes that normally involve sociopaths and serial killers. In this specific episode I saw examples of the behavioral perspective, cognitive perspective, and sociocultural perspective. Using the science of psychology is an amazing way to solve crimes.