The Case of Oscar Pistorius Assignment

Running head: THE CASE OF OSCAR PISTORIUS
THE CASE OF OSCAR PISTORIUS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

THE CASE OF OSCAR PISTORIUS1
Part One
Psychologists use critical thinking skills by using scientific method of inquiry. In order to
do so, the psychologists use four goals of psychology, which are description, explanation,
prediction and influence of the events. The event that I have chosen is the murder charge that the
South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius faced over his girlfriend’s shooting.
Description
Psychology is a science; therefore, it serves to understand behaviour and the mind in a
scientific manner. As such, the first goal of psychology is to describe the event or the behaviour.
Describing the event gives a detailed perspective in understanding what normal and abnormal
behaviour is (Wood, 2017). On 14 February 2013, Oscar Pistorius was charged with murdering
his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. According to an article in The Guardian, Pistorius had fired
four bullets into her head, chest and arm when they were at Pistorius’s house in Pretoria (Smith,
2013). The officers reported that there were no traces of forced entry and they were the only
people at house at that point of time. She had been shot at around 3 a.m. The neighbours even
added that they had heard “screaming and shouting” (Smith, 2013). It was worth noting that they
had earlier asked the police for help for investigating events of domestic nature of fall out in the
past (Smith, 2013). The newspaper article reported that Pistorius later admitted to unintentionally
shooting his girlfriend when he mistook her for an intruder and shot her through his locked
bathroom door.
Explanation
The next step in psychology is explaining the event. Here the psychologist tries to explain
the behaviour related to the event by exploring into the qualitative and quantitative analysis of

THE CASE OF OSCAR PISTORIUS2
the event (Wood, 2017). An in-depth research into the personality of the individual can provide
good evidence about the behaviour of the individual. In this case, a number of factors can be
taken into account as to why he got involved in such a tragic incident. In 2009, he was arrested
after a 19-year old woman alleged assault against him and as a result, he had to spend a night in
jail (Smith, 2013). However, there were no charges made against him due to lack of any
evidence.
In another incident, he had crashed a speedboat on Vaal River in South Africa and broke
his nose, jaw and ribs. The witnesses said that he was indulged himself in drinking prior to the
crash (Smith, 2013). The police even found alcohol in the wreckage however; they admitted that
they did not run any tests on him. Pistorius had even threatened a man of breaking his legs, as he
believed that his girlfriend had cheated on him with the man. Pistorius enjoyed target shooting
and had even engaged in a session with a journalist where he said that he would be deadly if he
practised enough. He had even admitted that he would go to target shooting ranges when he
could not sleep (Smith, 2013). The relationship of Pistorius and Reeva seemed normal and happy
that can be accounted in the form of tweets where Reeva had tweeted that she was excited for
this Valentine’s Day and wished for the day to be blessed (Freeman, 2014). She had told South
Africa’s Sunday Times that Pistorius was an impeccable man who had best interest for her.
However, Reeva had stated in messages that she was afraid of him and felt attacked from the one
person she deserved protection from.
Prediction
The next goal of psychology is to predict. The psychologists can use the knowledge from
the evidences in explanations and predict as to why, when and how things would occur in the
future (Wood, 2017). I would use the case of Oscar Pistorius as an example to understand cases