Psychology In The Maltese Falcon

Many times in courses that you take, you not only find the material useful for that course but for other courses also and we just don’t realize it. Although The Maltese Falcon is used in an English course some of the events could be beneficial in a psychology course. With the definition of psychology being the study of mind behavior and understanding different people in different cases, one could see why or better yet how this novel could be used in such a course. In The Maltese Falcon, there are a lot of mind tricks and duplicity that occurs such as lies about money, murders, people, etc. In the novel Sam Spade has a certain way that he acts towards every woman that he comes in contact with, which is in a way emotionally distant because he thinks that every women is dangerous. As Stephen J Morse states in the article "Criminal Law And Common Sense: An Essay On The Perils And Promise Of Neuroscience.", “people may grow up completely used to the idea that every decision is a thoroughly mechanical process,” meaning that their decisions and thoughts come from prior events which explains why Spade acts this way towards …show more content…
In the 6th chapter of The Maltese Falcon Spade tells Brigid that he was offered some money by Cario to see how she would react. One way she reacted was without eye contact which is what gave it away that she was either lying or hiding something. In "Lying Eyes: Why Liars Seek Deliberate Eye Contact." By Samantha Mann, she says states “that a liar cannot maintain eye contact”. Although Brigid glanced at Spade she quickly took her eyes off of him. A couple of questions that could be asked are, why would she act this way to a simple question? , from her body language could you tell she was hiding something? These are clues that a student in a psychology course would be asked to use in order to find the answers to these