1st Edition
Beliefs and Expectancies in Legal Decision Making
Beliefs and expectancies influence our everyday thoughts, feelings, and actions. These attributes make a closer examination of beliefs and expectancies worthwhile in any context, but particularly so within the high-stakes arena of the legal system. Whether the decision maker is a police officer assessing the truthfulness of an alibi, a juror evaluating the accuracy of an eyewitness identification, an attorney arguing a case involving a juvenile offender, or a judge deciding whether to terminate parental rights—these decisions matter and without doubt are influenced by beliefs and expectancies. This volume is comprised of research on beliefs and expectancies regarding alibis, children’s behaviour while testifying, eyewitness testimony, confessions, sexual assault victims, judges’ decisions in child protection cases, and attorneys’ beliefs about jurors’ perceptions of juvenile offender culpability. Areas for future research are identified, and readers are encouraged to discover new ways that beliefs and expectancies operate in the legal system.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Psychology, Crime & Law.
1. Introduction: Beliefs and expectancies in legal decision making Bradley D. McAuliff and Brian H. Bornstein 2. Beliefs about alibis and alibi investigations: a survey of law enforcement Jennifer E. Dysart and Deryn Strange 3. Do jurors get what they expect? Traditional versus alternative forms of children’s testimony Bradley D. McAuliff and Margaret Bull Kovera 4. The effects of mock jurors’ beliefs about eyewitness performance on trial judgments Tess M.S. Neal, Ashley Christiansen, Brian H. Bornstein and Timothy R. Robicheaux 5. Minimization and maximization techniques: assessing the perceived consequences of confessing and confession diagnosticity Allyson J. Horgan, Melissa B. Russano, Christian A. Meissner and Jacqueline R. Evans 6. Perceptions of sexual assault: expectancies regarding the emotional response of a rape victim over time Marc A. Klippenstine and Regina Schuller 7. Terminating parental rights: the relation of judicial experience and expectancy-related factors to risk perceptions in child protection cases Alicia Summers, Sophia Gatowski and Shirley Dobbin 8. Attorney and lay beliefs about factors affecting jurors’ perceptions of juvenile offender culpability Catherine R. Camilletti and Matthew H. Scullin
Biography
Bradley D. McAuliff, JD, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at California State University, Northridge, USA. He is Associate Editor of the journal Law & Human Behavior.
Brian H. Bornstein, PhD, is Professor of Psychology and Courtesy Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA. He is co-editor of the journal Psychology, Crime & Law.
