Law and Psychology Commons^™

Teacher Biases And Expectations: Impact On Self-Esteem, Self-Efficacy, Delinquent Behavior Among Black Grade School Students, Rhonda Lloyd

Dissertations

Black children and adolescents in today’s society face so many challenges that come about from the hands of authority figures in their life, their environment, the education system, and society as a whole. Through a critical review of literature, the author sought to answer three research questions: (1) What are the indications that teachers may be more biased toward Black students? (2) How do perceived teacher biases and discrimination impact the self-esteem and self-efficacy of Black students? (3) How are teacher bias and the school-to-prison pipeline connected? The literature review exposed a need for a teacher training model, which was …

“Some Mother’S Child Has Gone Astray”: Neuroscientific Approaches To A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Model Of Juvenile Sentencing, Michael L. Perlin, Alison Lynch

Articles & Chapters

There is a robust body of evidence that tells us that the juvenile brain is not fully developed by age 18, and this evidence should and does raise important questions about the sentencing of juveniles in criminal cases. This evidence, though, must be considered in the context of public opinion (about certain juvenile crimes that have been subject to saturation publicity) in the context of judges’ decision-making (where such judges do not want to be perceived as “soft on crime”). The conflict between what we now know and what (false) “ordinary common sense” demands (in the way of enhanced punishments) …

Mass Shootings, Mental "Illness," And Tarasoff, J. Thomas Sullivan

Law Faculty Scholarship

The continuing public attention focused on acts of mass violence, including mass shootings, has understandably created significant concerns over the ability to protect individuals from death and injury attributable to these acts. At least two generalized explanations for this kind of violence have been put forward, based on the nature of the acts and apparent motivation of the perpetrators, who are often killed in the process by themselves or law enforcement officers. Many acts of mass violence are committed by individuals confirmed to be terrorists, acting with political or religious-political motivations. Others are assumed to be committed by individuals acting …

Reducing Prejudice Through Law: Evidence From Experimental Psychology, Roseanna Sommers, Sara Burke

Law & Economics Working Papers

Can antidiscrimination law effect changes in public attitudes toward minority groups? Could learning, for instance, that employment discrimination against people with clinical depression is illegal cause members of the public to be more accepting toward people with mental health conditions? In this Article, we report the results of a series of experiments that test the effect of inducing the belief that discrimination against a given group is legal (vs. illegal) on interpersonal attitudes toward members of that group. We find that learning that discrimination is unlawful does not simply lead people to believe that an employer is more likely to …

The Unintentional Cost Of A Free Public Sex Offender Registry, Rebekah E. Leavitt

Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology

This literature review analyzes the efficacy of modern legislation guiding public access to sex offender registries and draws on research utilizing surveys, interviews, and statistical observations of convicted sex offenders to determine sources of ineffective practices at the legislative level. By utilizing Braithwaite’s reintegrative shaming theory (1989), in which stigmatizing shame is significantly less efficient in criminal contexts, current legislation and its impact on common issues experienced by sex offenders (including sexually addictive behaviors and childhood sexual abuse) are examined. The discerned prevalence of stigmatizing shame in modern legislation, which focuses on the individual rather than the undesirable behavior, indicates …

Talking Back In Court, M. Eve Hanan

Washington Law Review

People charged with crimes often speak directly to the judge presiding over their case. Yet, what can be seen in courtrooms across the U.S. is that defendants rarely “talk back” in court, meaning that they rarely challenge authority’s view of the law, the crime, the defendant, the court’s procedure, or the fairness of the proposed sentence.

With few exceptions, legal scholars have treated the occasions when defendants speak directly to the court as a problem to be solved by appointing more lawyers and better lawyers. While effective representation is crucial, this Article starts from the premise that defendants have important …

Mental Health Outcomes Of Various Types Of Fear Among University Students Who Have An Undocumented Legal Status During The Donald Trump Presidency, Liliana Campos

Doctoral Dissertations

Having an undocumented legal status is a risk factor for mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety among university students. Much of the literature on the experiences of university students who hold an undocumented legal status has primarily focused on better understanding the educational, social, financial, and legal challenges among undergraduate students. The literature has addressed how some of these difficulties impact components of their social and mental health wellness. Yet, there is still a dearth of research focused on further understanding the experiences of students who hold an undocumented legal status from a psychological perspective, and specifically, with …

Quantitative And Qualitative Assessment Of Interrogation Expectations, Shereen R. Lewis

Student Theses

Interrogation expectations (IE) is a construct that suggests expectations of custodial interrogations affect suspects’ Miranda waiver decisions while under interrogation. Prior research has examined IE quantitatively but there has been no prior research examining IE qualitatively. This current research conducted both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of IE using a sample of 335 participants from the United States. This research took the form of an online survey using Prolific (www.prolific.co) to recruit participants, Qualtrics (www.qualtrics.com) to record data, and SPSS and Nvivo to analyze quantitative qualitative data. It was hypothesized that substantial individual variation in IE will be found in …

The Rise Of Affectivism, Terry A. Maroney, David Dukes, Et Al.

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Research over the past decades has demonstrated the explanatory power of emotions, feelings, motivations, moods, and other affective processes when trying to understand and predict how we think and behave. In this consensus article, we ask: has the increasingly recognized impact of affective phenomena ushered in a new era, the era of affectivism? ...

The behavioural and cognitive sciences have faced perennial challenges of incorporating emotions, feelings, motivations, moods, and other affective processes into models of human behaviour and the human mind. Such processes have long been marginalised or ignored, typically on the basis that they were irrational, un-measurable, or …

Victim Impact: The Manson Murders And The Rise Of The Victims’ Rights Movement, Merrill W. Steeg

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Exploring Tactile Art-Making With Deafblind Students And Their Families: An Opportunity For Creative Play, Alice Rodgers

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The impact of a deafblind diagnosis on an individual’s mental health and the well-being of the family involved can be profound. However, current research and available literature for the mental health treatment and therapy practices of deafblind persons and their families is limited (Kyzar et al., 2016; “WFDB Global Report 2018,” n.d.). This thesis used the Leeds Family Psychology and Therapy Service principles (Leeds FPTS) and the Expressive Therapies Continuum with established deafblind teaching strategies to facilitate an original arts-based community project entitled: “Things We Like.” This project provided an opportunity for deafblind students (ages three to 22) and their …

Litigation Strategies For Suggestive Identification Evidence, Elaina Welch

Student Theses

To determine the best litigation strategy for defense attorneys presented with suggestive eyewitness evidence, I tested the influence of identifications obtained through in-court and out-of-court identification procedures on jurors’ decision-making. I recruited Mock jurors through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (N = 375) to watch a videotaped simulation of a robbery trial in which I varied whether the eyewitness made an in-court or out-of-court identification and the suggestiveness of the out-of-court identification procedure. Watching a trial with either an in-court or out-of-court identification procedure increased jurors’ likelihood to convict. Mock jurors who viewed a trial with an out-of-court identification procedure …

First Amendment Knowledge And Competence In United States Residents, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Kimberly M. Bernstein

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Lacking adequate knowledge about one's rights could inhibit the likelihood of exercising one's rights or lead one to unwittingly violate laws that place legitimate limits on these rights. Thus, the present research examines First Amendment knowledge as well as competence to apply this knowledge in relevant circumstances. Results revealed that one-quarter of participants failed a test of objective knowledge on First Amendment rights. Furthermore, participants' belief in their ability varied depending on their level of knowledge, in line with the Dunning–Kruger effect. Participants also failed to transfer their limited objective knowledge to “real-world” situations, exhibiting impaired First Amendment competence. These …

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: Analyzing Inhumane Practices In Mississippi’S Correctional Institutions Due To Overcrowding, Understaffing, And Diminished Funding, Ariel A. Williams

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research is to examine the political, social, and economic factors which have led to inhumane conditions in Mississippi’s correctional facilities. Several methods were employed, including a comparison of the historical and current methods of funding, staffing, and rehabilitating prisoners based on literature reviews. State-sponsored reports from various departments and the legislature were analyzed to provide insight into budgetary restrictions and political will to allocate funds. Statistical surveys and data were reviewed to determine how overcrowding and understaffing negatively affect administrative capacity and prisoners’ mental and physical well-being. Ultimately, it may be concluded that Mississippi has high …

The Search For Truth: Legal Storytelling From The Psychological Perspective, Chloe Graves

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explored the roles of trust, bias, and narrative in legal storytelling and made suggestions for improving legal storytelling and avoiding bias and mistrust when telling and analyzing legal stories. This study was a background and literature review and synthesis of the role of narrative, trust and bias in both general and legal presentation. The current thesis integrated many diverse sources to create an overview of the development of these psychological aspects in the legal field and in legal presentation. The most relevant studies to the legal field and legal presentation were included for integration and synthesis. From the …

How The Level Of Job Complexity Impacts The Gender Wage Gap Across Occupations, Zytlaly Magaña Corona

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The present study focused on unpacking the social and structural aspects of job complexity to better understand its effects on the gender wage gap. Previous research on the job complexity-compensation dynamic has primarily focused on cognitive complexity. Job complexity across occupations were examined using work activity data from O*NET and merging it with the Current Population Survey data sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (N=67,003). Results revealed that higher complexity jobs in this study yielded greater wage disparities across different occupations as predicted. Furthermore, physical activities and gaining knowledge from the Generalized Work Activities were the two most …

The Aftermath Of Sexual Assault: Creating The "I Am More Than My Experience" Workbook, Isabella Chung

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

The following thesis includes a literature review of the immediate and long-term effects of sexual assault on victims in regards to their physical, mental, and emotional health and romantic relationships, followed by a proposed workbook for sexual assault victims/survivors. Being that typical responses immediately after an assault are fear, disbelief, and activation of the sympathetic nervous system, it is to no surprise that long term issues of depression, anxiety, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often arise as well. Thus, a workbook was created with the intention of educating readers about sexual assault and helping victims/survivors to heal from the trauma …

Modify State “Piracy” After Allen: Introducing Apology To The U.S. Copyright Regime, Runhua Wang

Buffalo Law Review

Copyright protection from state offenders is onerous because of the imbalanced bargaining power between states and authors, which is increased by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Allen v. Cooper. This decision clarifies that state sovereign immunity is not abrogated by the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 (“CRCA”). It secures states’ constitutional rights, the public interest, and the efficiency of copyright infringement litigations against states. However, a paradox of this decision is that it may harm innovation incentives or spirits of creativity due to the increased imbalanced bargaining power to prevent authors from being repaired for their economic or …

The Insights, Uses, And Ethics Of Social Neuroscience In Anti-Discrimination Law, Susan Carle

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The article explores the uses in anti-discrimination law of social neuroscience—a broad interdisciplinary field that draws on the insights of brain science, medicine, epidemiology, social psychology, behavioral economics, moral cognitive neuroscience and many other experimentally based disciplines. It discusses the promising uses of social neuroscience findings from all these subfields on such matters as the irrational biases of “fast” thinking processes in general, and implicit biases against “out” groups more specifically, as well as group conformity, the black sheep effect, and more. The article traces a few of the ways these insights can help inform anti-discrimination law in both particular …

Precise Punishment: Why Precise Punitive Damage Requests Result In Higher Awards Than Round Requests, Michael Conklin

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Imagine a setting where someone asks two people what the temperature is outside. The first person says it is 80 °F, while the second person says it is 78.7 °F. Research regarding precise versus round cognitive anchoring suggests that the second person is more likely to be believed. This is because it is human nature to assume that if someone gives a precise answer, he must have good reason for doing so. This principle remains constant in a variety of settings, including used car negotiations, eBay transactions, and estimating the field goal percentage of a basketball player.

This Article reports …