Social Cognitive Processes in Legal Decision Making

A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 27 May 2025 | Viewed by 1764

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
Interests: extra-legal bias; perception; memory; reasoning; decision making; jurors; juries

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
Interests: legal decision-making; jurors; juries; racial bias; gender bias; emotion

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The legal system makes countless assumptions about how people think and act (e.g., jurors are able to set aside their biases, eyewitness memory acts as a videotape). But when those assumptions are erroneous, the consequences can be life-changing. Thus, it is critical for researchers to empirically examine how and when social cognitive processes can challenge and inform the legal system’s assumptions about human behavior. In this Special Issue, we seek research examining the role of social cognitive processes in legal decision making, broadly construed.  We welcome all submissions related to decision making in legal contexts, including but not limited to decision making among eyewitnesses, judges, attorneys, jurors and juries, police officers, and forensic examiners. We also welcome submissions from a broad range of disciplines, including psychology, law, criminal justice, criminology, sociology, and political science, among others.

Abstract Deadline: October 30, 2024
Notification of Abstract Acceptance: November 15, 2024

Dr. Kayla Burd
Dr. Hannah Phalen
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • psychology
  • law
  • social cognition
  • social cognitive processes
  • decision making
  • judgment
  • reasoning
  • memory
  • prejudice
  • bias

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

24 pages, 1050 KiB  
Article
Punishment after Life: How Attitudes about Longer-than-Life Sentences Expose the Rules of Retribution
by Eyal Aharoni, Eddy Nahmias, Morris B. Hoffman and Sharlene Fernandes
Behav. Sci. 2024, 14(9), 855; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs14090855 - 23 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1294
Abstract
Prison sentences that exceed the natural lifespan present a puzzle because they have no more power to deter or incapacitate than a single life sentence. In three survey experiments, we tested the extent to which participants support these longer-than-life sentences under different decision [...] Read more.
Prison sentences that exceed the natural lifespan present a puzzle because they have no more power to deter or incapacitate than a single life sentence. In three survey experiments, we tested the extent to which participants support these longer-than-life sentences under different decision contexts. In Experiment 1, 130 undergraduates made hypothetical prison sentence-length recommendations for a serious criminal offender, warranting two sentences to be served either concurrently or consecutively. Using a nationally representative sample (N = 182) and an undergraduate pilot sample (N = 260), participants in Experiments 2 and 3 voted on a hypothetical ballot measure to either allow or prohibit the use of consecutive life sentences. Results from all experiments revealed that, compared to concurrent life sentences participants supported the use of consecutive life sentences for serious offenders. In addition, they adjusted these posthumous years in response to mitigating factors in a manner that was indistinguishable from ordinary sentences (Experiment 1), and their support for consecutive life sentencing policies persisted, regardless of the default choice and whether the policy was costly to implement (Experiments 2 and 3). These judgment patterns were most consistent with retributive punishment heuristics and have implications for sentencing policy and for theories of punishment behavior. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Cognitive Processes in Legal Decision Making)
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