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Criminal Profiling: Science, Logic, and Cognition

When it comes to criminal profiling, we need to have a working understanding of what inferences are and how they are developed. Inferences are conclusions made solely based on evidence and reasoning, which is quite different than gut feelings and speculation. Speculation is a conclusion based on guesswork or the belief of answers, despite not having any actual evidence. In order for our inferences to be legitimate, we need to use the scientific method. Remember that pesky method we needed to rehearse and remember throughout grade school? Well, it’s back and it is important in criminal profiling.

While we use firm evidence to come to our conclusions, it is imperative that we realize that sometimes we may be wrong. More than that, we need to acknowledge that due to our own life circumstances and experiences may lead us to have our own biases.

Bias

Our biases exist, whether we are aware of them or not. Biases can lead us down the wrong path if we develop a profile that is contaminated. Observer effects are present when the results of a forensic examination are distorted by the context and mental state of the forensic examiner, to include the examiner’s subconscious expectations and desires. If we have already developed an idea of who committed the crime or what type of crime as committed, we seek out answers that match that idea.

The majority of practitioners in the forensic community routinely acknowledge the existence of overt forms of conscious bias. That is, they generally recognize and condemn forensic ignorance, forensic fraud, and evidence fabricators when they are dragged into the light and exposed for all to see. Although the forensic community is somewhat attenuated to the potential for extreme forms of outright fraud and overt bias, it tends to be wholly unaware when it comes to understanding and accepting that well- documented forms of covert bias can taint even the most impartial scientific examinations. This is disheartening for the simple reason that covert and subconscious biases represent a far greater threat to the forensic community than do the small percentage of overtly biased, dishonest, or fraudulent forensic examiners. This form of bias must be recognized and methods and mechanisms to blunt its effect must be embraced.

A strict adherence to, and a full embrace of, the scientific method is the first in a series of steps that can blunt the effects of even the most pervasive forms of bias.

Science and the Scientific Method

The relationship between scientists, the scientific method, and science is thus: Scientists employing the scientific method can work within a particular discipline to help create and build a body of scientific knowledge to the point where its

theories become principles and the discipline as a whole eventually becomes a science. The discipline remains a science through the continued building of scientific knowledge, as this is regarded as a process rather than a result. The scientific method is a way to investigate how or why something works, or how something happened, through the development of hypotheses and subsequent attempts at falsification through testing and other accepted means. The steps of the scientific method are as followed:

1. Observation. An observation is made regarding some event, fact, or object. This observation leads to a specific question regarding the event, fact, or object, such as where or when an object originated or how an object came to possess certain traits.

2. Hypothesis. A hypothesis, or educated estimate, is formulated regarding the possible answer. Often, there is more than one possible answer. 3. Experimentation. Experiments are designed and intended to disprove their hypothesis. The absolute cornerstone of the scientific method is falsification.

Science as Falsification

Falsification is the act of refuting or disproving a hypothesis or theory. If a hypothesis remains standing after a succession of tests or experiments fail to disprove it, then it may become a scientific theory, which may be stated or presented with a reasonable degree of scientific certainty. Scientific theories that withstand the test of time and study eventually become scientific principles.

The correct use of the scientific method is impossible without critical thinking and the science of logic to accurately synthesize, interpret, and apply the results.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking refers to indiscriminately questioning all evidence and assumptions, no matter what their source. Critical thinking can be seen as having two components:

1. a set of skills to process and generate information and beliefs; and 2. the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior.

For the purposes of forensic examination (which, again, includes criminal profiling) the application of critical thinking to casework means a staunch refusal to accept any evidence or conclusions without sufficient proof. It involves the careful and deliberate determination of whether to accept, reject, or suspend judgment about any information or related findings. It means skeptical gathering of evidence, skeptical examinations, and the skeptical interpretation of results. This includes the following tasks:

1. Evaluating the nature and quality of any information and its source 2. Recognizing bias in all of its forms, including all of the sources of bias 3. Separating facts from opinions

4. Distinguishing between primary sources of information (unaltered— direct from the source) and secondary sources of information (altered— interpreted or summarized through someone else) 5. Synthesizing information.

The Science of Logic

Logic can be defined as the process of argumentation and the science of valid thought and reasoning. The following are the basic principles of logic:

1. The principle of identity: “It is what it is”. In criminal profiling, this principle may be used to argue for individually profiling particular crimes. The crime is the crime. A murder is a murder. 2. The principle of the excluded middle: Between being and nonbeing, there is no middle state. In terms of criminal profiling, either a crime has occurred, or it has not. Basically, everything actually is black or white, or no grey in between. 3. The principle of sufficient reason: Ever hear the phrase, everything happens for a reason? Well, this principle fits that phrase. With respect to criminal profiling, this bars the examiner from assuming facts for the purpose of analysis or from using Martians, UFOs, or Bigfoot to explain events.

Induction and Deduction

There are two general categories of reasoning behind the criminal profiling process, as with most forms of logic and argumentation. One can be described as inductive, referring to a comparative, correlational, or statistical process, often reliant on subjective expertise that is most often associated with the development of psychological syndromes. The other has been described by the author as deductive and refers to a forensic evidence-based, process-oriented method of investigative reasoning about the behavior patterns of a particular offender. Induction

An inductive argument is where the conclusion is made likely, a matter of some probability, by offering supporting conclusions. It is a prediction of what might be true. A good inductive argument provides strong support for the conclusions offered, but this still does not make the argument infallible.

There are 2 types of inductive arguments: 1. Inductive generalization. Argues from the specific to the general. Conclusions are formed about characteristics from observations of a single event or individual or a small number of events or individuals. 2. Statistical argument. The truthfulness of a statistical argument is a matter of probability.

Deduction

Deductive reasoning involves arguments whereby, if the premises are true, then the conclusions must also be true. The conclusions flow directly from the premises given. It is designed so that it takes us from truth to truth.

Fallacies of Logic

The most revealing indicator of the absence of analytical logic and the scientific method in a criminal profile is the presence of logical fallacy. Logical fallacies are errors in reasoning that essentially deceive those whom they are intended to convince.

The following are examples of logical fallacies in criminal profiling:

Suppressed Evidence or Card Stacking

A one-sided argument that presents only evidence favoring a particular conclusion and ignores or downplays the evidence against it.

Appeal to Authority

Occurs when someone offers a conclusion based on the stated authority or expertise of themselves or others.

Appeal to Tradition

Reasons that a conclusion is correct simply because it is older, traditional, or “has always been so.”

Argument ad Hominem, or “Argument to the Man”

Attacks an opponent’s character rather than an opponent’s reasoning.

Emotional Appeal

Attempts to gain favor based on arousing emotions or sympathy to subvert rational thought.

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc, or “After this, therefore because of this”

Occurs when one jumps to a conclusion about causation based on a correlation between two events, or types of events, that occur simultaneously.

Hasty Generalizations

Occurs when one forms a conclusion based on woefully incomplete information or by examining only a few specific cases that are not representative of all possible cases.

Sweeping Generalizations

Occurs when one forms a conclusion by examining what occurs in many cases and assumes that it must or will be so in a particular case. This is the opposite of a hasty generalization.

False Precision

Occurs when an argument treats information as being more precise than it really is.

Metacognition

Metacogition refers to one’s ability to estimate how well one is performing, when one is likely to be accurate, and when one is likely to be in error. We often misjudge how well we are doing at something, like a job or a hobby. Metacognition requires that we become aware of our thoughts and the process of thinking. If you’ve ever heard someone say they are thinking about thinking, that’s metacognition!

For metacognitive ability to engage, there must first be a level of self- awareness. Self-awareness entails explicit knowledge that one exists separately from other people and full recognition of one’s capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes. As criminal profilers, we must have extensive knowledge and training regarding the field so that we are able to do our job well. This requires us to know the basic principles and practice standards, but more than that, we must also understand why those principles and standards are the way they are.

One thing that is imperative of criminal profilers, and would be useful for all of us, is to take a step back and think about what it is we are doing. By taking a step back, we can determine how well we are doing, if we are on the right track, rethink the steps, and critique ourselves.

Metacognitive dissonance refers to the internal struggle between believing you have the ability to complete a task, despite having reasons and evidence that suggests otherwise. Examples of metacognitive dissonance include thinking that you are more knowledgeable on a topic than you actually are – I once was in a conversation with a young woman who thought she could uphold a conversation and critique baseball players with a gentleman who avidly watched baseball, read the releases, and was up to date on most players’ stats; while she was adamant she knew what she was talking about, she did not; another example is to believe you are developing your reasons in a logical manner, but actually succumbing to your fallacies and biases; and the best example is believing you are always right and incapable of ever being wrong.

General examples include believing oneself to be knowledgeable despite a demonstrable lack of knowledge; believing oneself to be incapable of error despite the human condition; believing oneself to be logical in one’s reasoning despite regular entrapment by logical fallacies; and believing that you have the ability (and actually attempting to do so) to be completely objective despite the persistence of observer effects.