Law Commons^™

Metaresearch, Psychology, And Law: A Case Study On Implicit Bias, Jason M. Chin, Alex O. Holcombe, Kathryn Zeiler, Patrick S. Forscher, Ann Guo

Connecticut Law Review

When can scientific findings from experimental psychology be confidently applied to legal issues? When applications have clear limits, do legal commentators readily acknowledge them? To address these questions, we survey recent findings from an emerging field of research on research (i.e., metaresearch). We find that many aspects of experimental psychology’s research and reporting practices threaten the validity and generalizability of legally relevant research findings, including those relied on by courts and policy-setting bodies. As a case study, we appraise the empirical claims relied on by commentators claiming that measures designed to estimate implicit bias are valid, that implicit bias causes …