Psychiatric expert testimony is challenging in cases of violence when the accused person submits a defence that he or she was so overwhelmed by emotions triggered by an upsetting event that his or her violent behaviour was an uncontrollable consequence of the emotions. This defence is usually presented in terms of an automatism particularly not attributed to a mental disorder. Clouding testimon...

What leads children to moralize actions that cause no apparent harm? We hypothesized that adults' verbal instruction ("testimony"), as well as emotions such as disgust, would influence children's moralization of apparently harmless actions. To test this hypothesis, 7-year-old children were asked to render moral judgments of novel, seemingly victimless, body-directed or nature-directed actions a...

What leads children to moralize actions that cause no apparent harm? We hypothesized that adults’ verbal instruction (“testimony”), as well as emotions such as disgust, would influence children’s moralization of apparently harmless actions. To test this hypothesis, seven-year-old children were asked to render moral judgments of novel, seemingly victimless, body-directed or nature-directed actio...

This paper discusses the perceptions of psychiatric testimony by the public, lawyers, and psychiatrists. Five major criticisms are put into historical perspective: psychiatrists excuse sin; psychiatrists always disagree; psychiatrists give confusing, subjective, uninformed, jargon-ridden testimony; psychiatrists dictate the law; psychiatrists give conclusory opinions. Proposed solutions to thes...