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Full-Text Articles in Law and Psychology
Social Value Orientation And The Law, Rebecca Hollander-Blumoff
Social Value Orientation And The Law, Rebecca Hollander-Blumoff
William & Mary Law Review
Social value orientation is a psychological trait defined as an individual’s natural preference with respect to the allocation of resources. Law and economics scholarship takes as its starting point the rational actor, who is by definition interested solely in maximizing her own personal utility. But social psychology research demonstrates that, in study after study, approximately half of individuals demonstrate a “prosocial” orientation, meaning that they are interested in maximizing the total outcome of the group and are dedicated to an equal split of resources. Only around a quarter of individuals identify as “proself” individualists who prefer to maximize their own …
Buying Happiness: Property, Acquisition, And Subjective Well-Being, David Fagundes
Buying Happiness: Property, Acquisition, And Subjective Well-Being, David Fagundes
William & Mary Law Review
Acquiring property is a central part of the modern American vision of the good life. The assumption that accruing more land or chattels will make us better off is so central to the contemporary preoccupation with acquisition that it typically goes without saying. Yet an increasing body of evidence from psychologists and economists who study hedonics—the science of happiness—yields the surprising conclusion that getting and having property does not actually increase our subjective well-being. In fact, it might even decrease it. While scholars have integrated the insights of hedonics into other areas of law, no scholarship has yet done so …