An important debate is brewing over the proper scope of expert witness testimony that purports to summarize general social science evidence to provide context for the factfinder to decide case-specific questions. In a recent article, we argued that experts who provide this ‘social framework'...

Behavioral law and economics scholars who advance paternalistic policy proposals typically employ static models of decision-making behavior, despite the dynamic effects of paternalistic policies. In this article, we consider how paternalistic policies fare under a dynamic account of...

Biases in judgment and decision-making often arise at the level of first-order thoughts. If these initial thoughts are not overridden by second-order thoughts, they may lead to biased outputs. Current psychological models of legal actors assume that individuals are largely incapable of...

Fingerprint examiners use a variety of terms and phrases to describe a finding of a match between a defendant’s fingerprints and fingerprint impressions collected from a crime scene. Despite the importance and ubiquity of fingerprint evidence in criminal cases, no prior studies examine how...

Scott Lilienfeld warned that psychology’s ideological uniformity would lead to premature closure on sensitive topics. He encouraged psychologists to question politically convenient results and did so himself in numerous areas. We follow Lilienfeld’s example and examine the empirical...

This study compared two forms of accountability that can be used to promote diversity and fairness in personnel selections: identity-conscious accountability (holding decision makers accountable for which groups are selected) versus identity-blind accountability (holding decision makers...

This paper advances a contextualist approach to empirical legal research, arguing that legal scholars should seek to map behavioral regularities in discrete legal contexts rather than develop a broad theory of legal judgment. The need for this cartographic approach to legal behavior, and the...

Corporations must comply with a dizzying array of laws and regulations. To accomplish this complex task, corporations increasingly turn not just to the legal department and outside counsel but also an in-house group composed of non-lawyer specialists who seek to educate and motivate personnel...

Previous studies have found that the cognitive performance of government decision-makers declines in crises that result in war. This decline has been attributed to crisis-produced stress which leads to simplification of information processing. The present study tested the disruptive stress...