Social influence rises with the number of influence sources, but the proposed relationship varies across theories, situations, and research paradigms. To clarify this relationship, I argue that people share some sense of where the “burden of social proof” lies in situations where opinions or...

Nearly all American states use one of two systems for setting the amount of child support that noncustodial parents (NCPs) are required to pay to custodial parents (CPs). In previous work we found that lay judgments of the child support amount the law should require differ in meaningful ways...

We offer a theory and methodology for studying what we call social propensities. A social propensity consists of a social value rule (e.g., MaxOwn, MinDiff, Need) combined with a propensity function (monotonic or non-monotonic) that expresses the rule as a probability of endorsement for a given...

Using administrative data on public school students in North Carolina, we find that sixth grade students attending middle schools are much more likely to be cited for discipline problems than those attending elementary school. That difference remains after adjusting for the socioeconomic and...

The phenomenon of p-hacking occurs when researchers engage in questionable practices that enable them to report findings as being statistically significant. I offer four models of p-hacking behavior – unconditional, strategic, greedy, and restrained – and explore the implications of each...

This chapter provides an overview of computational modeling of conformity, group deliberation, and social diffusion processes, with an emphasis on social psychological perspectives rather than the kinds of structural and institutional issues modeled in political science and sociology. The...

In the last decade, the study of social norms has become a major focus of theory and research in law and economics. Surprisingly, this "new norms" literature has almost completely ignored decades of systematic theory, experimentation, and field research on normative processes by social...

Using administrative data on public school students in North Carolina, we find that sixth grade students attending middle schools are much more likely to be cited for discipline problems than those attending elementary school. That difference remains after adjusting for the socioeconomic and...

Different models of judicial decision making highlight particular goals. Traditional legal theory posits that in making decisions judges strive to reach the correct legal decision as dictated by precedent. Attitudinal and strategic models focuses on the ways in which judges further their...