Using psychology to control law

Legal decision makers often fail to make use of relevant psychological research. In two areas, deceptive advertising and criminal sentencing, legal decision makershave welcomed social science research. In each, the research provided has been substantially flawed. Using a commercial that several courts evaluated for deception, I illustrate how the typical study that purports to measure deception produces results that are unnecessarily ambibuous. Then, based on research that looks closely at public responses to criminal cases, I show that the frequently cited survey measures of public preference reflect sentencing preferences for unrepresentative stereotypic criminal offenders. The weaknesses demonstated in these examples suggest that psychologists can present legal decision makers with a more accurate picture of human perceptions and preferences. If researchers present legal decision makers with informative research when the relevance of research is acknowledged, legal decision makers are likely to become more receptive and more knowledgeable when a new question warrants the application of social science evidence.An earlier version of this paper was delivered as the presidential address for Division 41, the American Psychology—Law Society, at the 1988 American Psychological Association meetings in Atlanta, Georgia.     

From fragmentation to configuration

The rapid emergence of the policy science conception is a consequence of profound changes in the modern world, and in turn is affecting public and private decision. In broad outline European civilization has passed from a high level of homogeneity to increasing fragmentation, and more recently toward a new and comprehensive configurative outlook.(1) The differentiation of the modern world fostered the fragmentation of intellectual life. It reduced the relative number of men of knowledge who gave attention to the map of knowledge as a whole, or to the social consequences and policy implications of science and scholarship.(2) At a later stage of differentiation specialists attain a high level of involvement in the policy processes of society. Increasingly they utilize a configurative approach to the advancement and application of knowledge.(3) At first, special and exclusive interests are multiplied by differentiation and fragmentation. As the aggregate impact of men of knowledge expands, particular demands are made more universal. This is a by-product of coalition formation.(4) Configurative ways of thinking do not necessarily result in effective control by champions of democratic and peaceful policy aims unless genuine freedom of access to knowledge—to data banks—is maintained, realistic common interests are unlikely to be defined either by policy scientists or decisionmakers.Distinguished Professor of Policy Sciences, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York; Ford Foundation Professor Emeritus of the Social Sciences and Law, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.     

The dynamic political economy of support for Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election campaign

In recent years, students of voting behavior have become increasingly interested in valence politics models of electoral choice. These models share the core assumption that key issues in electoral politicds typically are ones upon which there is a widespread public consensus on the goals of public policy. The present paper uses latent curve modeling procedures and data from a six-wave national panel survey of the American electorate to investigate the dynamic effects of voters’ concerns with the worsening economy—a valence issue par excellence—in the skein of causal forces at work in the 2008 presidential election campaign. As the campaign developed, the economy became the dominant issue. Although the massively negative public reaction to increasingly perilous economic conditions was not the only factor at work in 2008, dynamic multivariate analyses show that mounting worries about the economy played an important role in fueling Barack Obama’s successful run for the presidency.     

评阿兰·沃森的《法律移植:比较法的方法》

<正> 爱丁堡大学民法教授阿兰·沃森在其《法律移植:比较法的方法》(Legal Transplants:An Approach to Comparative Law,佛吉尼亚大学出版社,1974年版)一书中试图证实比较法是一门学科。沃森教授提出:"比较法是研究有关法律的本质,特别是有关法律发展的本质的学科。"其主要功能在于使人了解"决定法律发展进程的独特因素。" 然而,研究十六世纪在鲁瑞斯坦(本文作者杜撰的国家)以特殊形式出现的独特的法律