Keywords
paradigm
anthropological paradigm
clinical paradigm
paradigm shift
determinism
social determinism
How to Cite
Abstract
Background. During the 19th and 21st centuries, scientific paradigms were formed and changed in the field of legal psychology. Clinical, anthropological, behaviorist, cognitive, existential-humanistic, and socio-contextual can be singled out among them. Therefore, as legal psychology studies the regularities of human behavior in the system «human – law», there is a need for further differentiation of the specified paradigms according to the criterion of substantiating the factors that affect human behavior.
Objective. To determine the main factors that affect human behavior in the context of the relationship «human – law», according to the theoretical foundations of the six main historical scientific paradigms of legal psychology.
Methods. The systemic method has been applied to determine the permanent causal relationships that make up the theoretical-methodological basis of different paradigms in legal psychology. Comparative and epistemological methods were used to differentiate the six main historical legal and psychological paradigms according to the deterministic criterion.
Results. The genesis of legal and psychological knowledge originates in the clinical and medical field of knowledge, after which it differentiates into clinical and anthropological paradigms. After the 1950s, the influence of psychologism on the psychology of law contributes to the gradual transformation of clinicism and anthropologism into paradigms of behaviorism and cognitivism, and after the 1980s – of social-contextualism and existential humanism. Using the theoretical work of representatives of a specific paradigm, it was determined in which historical paradigms of legal psychology social determinism were the main theoretical component.
Conclusions. The features of each of the six historical paradigms in legal psychology are characterized, including their genesis, theoretical foundations, and place in the epistemological evolution of legal psychology. Socio-determinant legal-psychological paradigms, which include anthropological, behaviorist and socio-contextual, are differentiated from individual-determinant ones, which are represented by clinical, cognitive and existential-humanistic ones. The features of social determinism, which is characterized by the externality and external conditioning of the explanation of cause-and-effect relationships, and individual determinism, which appeals to the features that are inherent in «human nature».
Keywords: legal psychology, paradigm, anthropological paradigm, clinical paradigm, paradigm shift, determinism, social determinism.
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