Experimental
Psychology and Law
Instructor
Professor
of Psychology
Office: 2118A North Hall
Phone: 212.484.1112
E-Mail: mkovera@jjay.cuny.edu
Website: http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~mkovera
Office Hours: by appointment
This graduate
seminar is designed to expose you to classic and contemporary issues in psychology
and law. Over the course of this
semester, we will examine research in a variety of areas in which non-clinical
psychology intersects with the legal system, including procedural justice,
eyewitness identification, pretrial publicity, jury decision making, expert
evidence, discrimination, and sentencing issues. Our focus will be on both
basic and applied issues raised by the readings. How has the research advanced relevant
psychological theory and what are the implications for future research? To what extent does or should the research
inform public policy? In the context of
our analyses, we will discuss basic psychological theory, relevant case law,
and methodological issues associated with conducting research in psychology and
law. This course will require the active
participation of each member of the class and the specific content of the
course will be determined, in part, by your interests.
Required
There is no required text book for this course. All readings are available at my website
(http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~mkovera).
Course Requirements
Reaction
Papers. Each week, you will be expected to write a
1-2 page single-spaced paper that describes your reactions to the week's
readings. This paper may include
synthesis of several of the readings, criticism of the research question and/or
the research methods employed by the researchers, possible implications of the
results, or directions for future research (i.e., future research directions
that were NOT discussed in the readings).
Your reaction paper should include at least one testable hypothesis that
you derived from the readings. Your
description of the hypothesis should contain a statement of the research
problem and a specific, directional hypothesis about the relationship between
at least two variables. Finally, your
paper should end with 2-3 questions for discussion in class. Good questions will provoke sustained discussion
and address an interesting or controversial empirical or policy issue that is
derived from the readings.
Papers are due
to me by email at 5PM the day before class.
I will drop the two lowest grades so that your final grade for the
reaction papers will be based on ten papers.
Your grades on these reaction papers are worth 30% of your grade.
Class Participation. To
participate fully in class discussions, all assigned material should be read
before class each week. You should come
to class prepared to discuss your reactions to the material. The reaction papers and discussion questions
should help prepare you for this discussion.
You will be graded on the quality and quantity of participation. Quality participation consists of comments or
questions that move the discussion forward and are based on evidence. Class participation is worth 30% of your
grade.
Grant Proposal. During
the course of the semester, you should take one of your research hypotheses and
develop it into a grant proposal addressing some legal psychology (i.e.,
non-clinical psychology and law) topic that is of interest to you. The grant proposal should follow the
guidelines set forward for grant proposals by the National Science Foundation,
which can be found at http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?gpg. Specifically, your proposal should include
the project description and references cited portions of an NSF grant
proposal. The proposal must be in
The project
description (excluding references) may not exceed 15 single-spaced pages (the
maximum set by NSF). You will have
several opportunities to receive formal feedback throughout the semester. Halfway through the semester you will submit
a proposal summary that describes your research problem and proposed
studies. Two weeks before the final
proposal is due, you will submit a first draft of your proposal for
feedback. Final proposals are due on May
18th. Final papers will be evaluated
based on the quality of the proposed research as well as the style and clarity
of the paper. Your research proposal is worth 40% of your grade.
Course Policies
Attendance
You are required to attend all of the class meetings. If you will have to
miss a class, please let me know ahead of time so we can make arrangements for
you to make up the work that you missed. Failure to attend class without an
approved excused absence will result in the lowering of the portion of your
grade for class discussions.
Academic Honesty
Cheating and/or plagiarism will not be tolerated in this class. The
following information on academic honesty is from the Graduate Center Student
Handbook (2006) (available online at
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/current_students/handbook/acadPol.htm#29):
The Graduate Center of The City University of
Each member of the academic community is
expected to give full, fair, and formal credit to any and all sources that have
contributed to the formulation of ideas, methods, interpretations, and
findings. The absence of such formal credit is an affirmation representing that
the work is fully the writer’s. The term “sources” includes, but is not limited
to, published or unpublished materials, lectures and lecture notes, computer
programs, mathematical and other symbolic formulations, course papers,
examinations, theses, dissertations, and comments offered in class or informal
discussions, and includes electronic media. The representation that such work
of another person is the writer’s own is plagiarism.
Care must be taken to document the source of
any ideas or arguments. If the actual words of a source are used, they must
appear within quotation marks. In cases that are unclear, the writer must take
due care to avoid plagiarism.
The source should be cited whenever:
(a) a text is quoted verbatim
(b) data gathered by another are presented in
diagrams or tables
(c) the results of a study done by another
are used
(d) the work or intellectual effort of
another is paraphrased by the writer.
Because the intent to deceive is not a
necessary element in plagiarism, careful note taking and record keeping are
essential in order to avoid unintentional plagiarism.
For additional information, please consult
“Avoiding and Detecting Plagiarism,” available in the Office of the Vice
President for Student Affairs, (Room 7301), the Provost’s Office (Room 8113),
or at http://web.gc.cuny.edu/provost/pdf/AvoidingPlagiarism.pdf.
Procedures to be followed in instances of
allegations of academic dishonesty.
As “Avoiding and Detecting Plagiarism,” notes,
“Consistent with the CUNY Policy on
Academic Integrity, The Graduate Center
Policy on Academic Honesty provides for referral of cases of alleged violations
first to the Executive Officer of a student’s program, where a three member ad
hoc faculty committee will review the evidence and recommend to the Executive
Officer whether formal disciplinary charges are warranted. The Executive
Officer then forwards the recommendation and the evidence to the Vice President
for Student Affairs. The Vice President for Student Affairs, under Article 15
of the CUNY Bylaws (Student Disciplinary Procedures), confers with the
Executive Officer and instructor, meets with the student, and otherwise further
investigates the matter before deciding whether to proceed with resolution,
conciliation, or formal disciplinary charges” (p. 23). Faculty “are encouraged
to discuss the matter with the student, including possible resolution, but no
student may be assigned a grade as a sanction without the student’s agreement
or a due process determination” (p. 17). Any such possible resolution, as well
as any accusation, must be reported to the Executive Officer and the Vice
President for Student Affairs. For this purpose, faculty are directed to the
“Faculty Report Form for Alleged Violations of The Graduate Center Policy on
Academic Honesty,” Appendix IV, p. 29 of the guide, available from the
Provost’s and Student Affairs offices or at http://web.gc.cuny.edu/provost/pdf/AvoidingPlagiarism.pdf.
Any student who has submitted a paper,
examination, project, or other academic work not his or her own without
appropriate attribution is subject to disciplinary charges. Such charges may
result in the imposition of a grade of “F” or other penalties and sanctions,
including suspension and termination of matriculation.
An accusation of academic dishonesty may be
brought against a student by a professor, an Executive Officer, a program, a
group of faculty, an administrator, or another student and must be reported to
the Executive Officer.
The Executive Officer, upon initiating or
receiving an allegation of academic dishonesty, shall appoint an ad hoc
committee consisting of three members of the faculty. The function of this committee
shall be to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to warrant levying
formal charges against the student and to make a recommendation to the
Executive Officer. The proceedings of the ad hoc committee shall be conducted
expeditiously and should receive the minimum publicity possible. A
recommendation by the ad hoc committee to levy formal charges shall be
forwarded in writing by the Executive Officer to the Vice President for Student
Affairs, who will then inform the student in writing of the nature of the
allegations against him or her and initiate disciplinary proceedings.
I reserve the right to use Turnitn, an
on-line service for detecting plagiarism.
The following is a statement from the College regarding the use of
Turnitin.
The College subscribes to Turnitin, an
on-line plagiarism prevention service. Students will be required to submit the
paper in electronic format (Word) to the Professor for submission to Turnitin.
Assignments submitted to Turnitin will be included in Turnitin’s restricted
access database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. Students may
not submit an electronic version of the paper in advance of the due date to
“test” the assignment’s originality. Students may not submit in this course
original material that has been used or is being used for written assignments
in other courses. Information about Turnitin is available at www.turnitin.com.
Class Accommodation
If you have a disability that requires accommodation, please see me right
away so that we can make appropriate arrangements.
CLASS SCHEDULE AND ASSIGNMENTS
January 31 Introduction
February
7 Procedural Justice
Shestowsky, D.
(2004). Procedural preferences in
alternative dispute resolution: A closer, modern look at an old idea. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10
211-249.
Heuer, L.,
Penrod, S., & Kattan, A. (in press).
The role of societal benefits and fairness concerns among decision makers and
decision recipients. Law and Human
Behavior. DOI 10.1007/s10979-006-9084-2.
Blader, S. L., & Tyler,
T. R. (2003). A four-component model of
procedural justice: Defining the meaning of a ‘fair’ process. Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 747-758.
Tyler, T. R. (2001). Public trust and confidence in legal
authorities: What do majority and minority group members want from the law and
legal institutions. Behavioral
Sciences and the Law, 19, 215-235.
Emery, R. E., Sbarra,
D., & Grover, T. (2005). Divorce
mediation: Research and reflections. Family Court Review, 43, 22-37.
February 14 NO CLASS
February 28 Eyewitnesses: Estimator Variables
Steblay, N. M. (1992). A meta-analytic review of the weapon focus effect. Law and Human Behavior, 16, 413-424.
Sporer, S. L., & Penrod, S., Read, D, & Cutler, B. (1995). Choosing, confidence, and accuracy: A meta-analysis of the confidence-accuracy relation in eyewitness identification studies. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 315-327.
Morgan, C. A., Hazlett, G., Doran, A., Garrett, S., Hoyt, G., Thomas, P., Baranoski, M., & Southwick, S. M. (2004). Accuracy of eyewitness memory for persons encountered during exposure to highly intense stress. International Journal of Law & Psychiatry, 27, 265-279.
Kassin, S. M., Tubb, V. A., Hosch, H. M., & Memon, A. (2001). On the "general acceptance" of eyewitness testimony research. American Psychologist, 56, 405-416.
Meissner, C. A.,
& Brigham, J. C. (2001). Thirty
years of investigating the own-race bias in memory for faces: A meta-analytic
review. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 7,I 3-35.
March 7 Eyewitnesses:
System Variables
Meissner,
C. A., Tredoux, C. G., Parker, J. F., & MacLin, O. H. (2005).
Eyewitness decisions in simultaneous and sequential lineups: A
dual-process signal detection theory analysis.
Memory & Cognition, 33, 783-792.
Clark,
S. E. (2005). A re-examination of the
effects of biased lineup instructions in eyewitness identification. Law and
Human Behavior, 29, 395-424.
Douglass, A. B.,
Smith, C., & Fraser-Thill, R.
(2005). A problem with
double-blind photospread procedures: Photospread administrators use one
eyewitness’s confidence to influence the identification of another
eyewitness. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 543-562.
Steblay, N., Dysart,
J., & Fulero, S. (2003). Eyewitness accuracy rates in police showup
and lineup presentations: A meta-analytic comparison. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 523-540.
Douglass, A.
B., & Steblay, N. (2006). Memory distortion in eyewitnesses: A
meta-analysis of the post-identification feedback effect. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 859-869.
March 14 Confessions
Kassin,
S. M. & Gudjonsson, G. H. (2004). The Psychology of Confessions: A Review
of the Literature and Issues. Psychological Science in the Public Interest,
5, 33-67.
Russano, M. B.,
Meissner, C. A., Farchet, F. M., & Kassin, S. M. (2005).
\Investigating true and false confessions within a novel experimental
paradigm. Psychological Science, 16, 481-486.
Kassin, S. M., Goldstein, C. C., & Savitsky, K. (2003). Behavioral confirmation in the interrogation room: On the dangers of presuming guilt. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 187-203.
Lassiter, G. D.,
P. J. Munhall, et al. (2005). Attributional complexity and the camera
perspective bias in videotaped confessions. Basic and Applied Social
Psychology, 27, 27-35.
Viljoen,
J. L., Klaver, J., & Roesch, R.
(2005). Legal decisions of preadolescent and adolescent defendants:
Predictors of confessions, pleas, communication with attorneys, and
appeals. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 253-277.
March
21 Lie Detection
Bond, C. F.,
& DePaulo, B. M. (2006). Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality
and Social Psychology Review, 10, 214-234.
Hartwig,
M., Granhag, P.A., Strömwall,
Ekman, P., O’Sullivan,
M., & Frank, M. G. (1999). A few can catch a liar. Psychological Science, 10, 263-266.
Pollina, D. A.,
Dollins, A. B., Senter, S. M., Krapohl, D. J., & Ryan, A. H. (2004). Comparison of polygraph data obtained
from individuals involved in mock crimes and actual criminal investigations. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 89, 1099-1105.
Verschuere, B., Crombez,
Geert, & Koster, E. H. W. (2004).
Orienting toward guilty knowledge. Cognition and Emotion, 18, 265-279.
March 28 Child
Witnesses (PROPSAL SUMMARIES DUE)
Gilstrap, L. L.,
& Ceci, S. J. (2005). Reconceptualizing children’s suggestibility:
Bidirectional and temporal properties. Child Development, 76, 40-53.
Eisen, M. L., Qin, J.,
Goodman, G. S., & Davis, S.L. (2002).
Memory and suggestibility in maltreated children: Age, stress arousal,
dissociation, and psychopathology. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology,
83, 167-212.
Leach, A., Talwar, V.,
Lee, J., Bala, N., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2004). “Intuitive” lie detection of children’s
deception by law enforcement officials and university students. Law and
Human Behavior, 28, 661-685.
Bottoms, B.
L., Golding, J. M., Stevenson, M. C., Wiley, T. R. A., & Yozwiak, J. A.
(2006). A review of factors affecting jurors’ decisions in child sexual abuse
cases. In M. P. Toglia, J. D. Read, D.
F. Ross, & R. C. L. Lindsay (Eds.), The handbook of eyewitness
psychology: Volume I: Memory for Events..
Kovera, M. B.,
Dickinson, J., & Cutler, B. L.
(2002). Voir dire and jury selection:
Practical issues, research findings, and directions for future research.
In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.), Comprehensive
Handbook of Psychology, Volume 11:
Forensic Psychology.
Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M. I. (in press). Race-based judgments, race-neutral justifications: Experimental examination of peremptory use and the Batson challenge procedure. Law and Human Behavior.
Johnson, C. & Haney, C. (1994). Felony voir dire: An exploratory study of its content and effect. Law and Human Behavior, 18, 487-506.
April
18 Jury Decision Making:
Procedural and Other Issues
Read, J. D.,
Connolly, D. A., & Welsh, A. (2006). An archival analysis of actual cases
of historic child sexual abuse: A comparison of jury and bench trials. Law
and Human Behavior, 30, 259-285.
Horowitz,
Steblay, N.,
Hosch, H, M., Culhane, S. E., & McWethy, A.
(2006). The impact on juror verdicts of judicial instruction to
disregard inadmissible evidence: A meta-analysis. Law Human Behavior,
30, 469–492.
Brewer, N.,
Harvey, S., & Semmler, C.
(2004). Improving comprehension
of jury instructions with audio-visual presentation. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 765-776.
Bornstein, B.
H. (1999). The ecological validity of
jury simulations: Is the jury still out?
Law and Human Behavior, 23, 75-91.
April 25 Jury
Decision Making: Civil Issues
Robbennolt, J.
K. (2002). Punitive damage decision making:
The decisions of citizens and trial court judges. Law and
Human Behavior, 26, 315-342.
Wissler, R. L.,
Rector, K. A., & Saks, M. J. (2001).
The impact of jury instructions on the fusion of liability and compensatory
damages. Law and Human Behavior, 25, 125-139.
Greene, E., Coon, D.,
& Bornstein, B. (2001). The effects
of limiting punitive damage awards. Law and Human Behavior, 25,
217-234.
Adams, C. M. S.,
& Bourgeois, M. J. (2006). Separating compensatory and punitive damage
award decisions by trial bifurcation . Law and Human Behavior, 30,
11-30.
Vidmar, N. (1994). Making inferences about jury behavior from
jury verdict statistics: Cautions about the Lorelei’s Lied. Law and
Human Behavior, 18, 599-617.
May 2 Expert
Testimony and Scientific Evidence (FIRST DRAFT OF PROPOSAL DUE)
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 113 S.Ct. 2786 (1993).
Kumho Tire Co., Ltd. v.
Carmichael, 119
Faigman, D., & Monahan, J. (2005). Psychological evidence at the dawn of the law’s scientific age. Annual Reviews of Psychology, 56, 631-659.
Groscup, J.
L., Penrod, S. D., Studebaker, C. A., Huss, M. T., & O’Neil, K. M. (2002). The effects of Daubert on the
admissibility of expert testimony in state and federal criminal cases. Psychology,
Public Policy, and Law, 8, 339-372.
Kovera, M.B., Russano, M.B., McAuliff, B.D. (2002). Assessment of the commonsense psychology underlying Daubert: Legal decision makers' abilities to evaluate expert evidence in hostile work environment cases. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 8, 180-200.
May 9 Discrimination
Fiske, S. T.,
Bersoff, D. N., Borgida, E., Deaux, K., & Heilman, M. E. (1991).
Social science research on trial: Use of sex stereotyping research in
Price Waterhouse v.
Barrett, G. V. &
Morris, S. B. (1993). The American Psychological Association’s
amicus curiae brief in Price Waterhouse v.
Bergman, M. E.,
Langhout, R. D., Palmieri, P A..
(2002). The (un)reasonableness of
reporting: Antecedents and consequences of reporting sexual harassment. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 87, 230-241.
O’Connor, M.,
Gutek, B. A., Stockdale, M., Geer, T. M., & Melancon, R. (2004).
Explaining sexual harassment judgments: Looking beyond gender of the
rater. Law and Humn Behavior, 28, 69-95.
Fitzgerald, L.
F., Buchanan, N. T., Collinsworth, L. L., Magley, V. J., & Ramos, A. M.
(1999). Junk logic: The abuse defense in
sexual harassment litigation. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, , 5,
730-759.
May 16 Death
Penalty
O’Neil, K. M., Patry, M.
W., & Penrod, S. D. (2004). Exploring the effects of attitudes toward the
death penalty on capital sentencing. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10,
443-470.
Lynch, M., & Haney,
C. (2000). Discrimination and instructional comprehension: Guided discretion,
racial bias, and the death penalty. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 337-358.
Radelet, M. L., &
Borg, M. J., (2000). The changing nature
of death penalty debates. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 43-61.
Cowan, C.L. &
Thompson, W. & Ellsworth, P. (1984). The effects of death qualification on
jurors' predisposition to convict and on the quality of deliberation. Law
and Human Behavior, 8, 53-80.
Haney, C. (1984). On the selection of capital juries:
The biasing effects of the death-qualification process. Law and
Human Behavior, 8, 121-132.
.