Course Details

Description:

"The lawyer and the judge and the juryman are sure that they do not need the experimental psychologist. They do not wish to see that in this field preeminently applied experimental psychology has made strong strides.... They go on thinking that their legal instinct and their common sense supplies them with all that is needed and somewhat more; and if the time is ever to come when the jurist is to show some concession to the spirit of modern psychology, public opinion will have to exert some pressure."

[From Munsterberg, H. (1908). On the witness stand. New York: Doubleday, Page, & Co. (pp. 10-11)]

Seminar Rationale: This interdisciplinary seminar will examine the scientific foundations for and legal implications of implicit (vs. explicit) racial and/or gender bias in four socio-legal domains: (1) criminal law, (2) affirmative action, (3) employment discrimination, and (4) social framework evidence. Each of these domains, in different ways, highlights what some scholars suggest is the disconnect between legal standards for decision making and psychological science on how people think about legal and policy issues through the filters of race and gender. Therefore, each week, we will read, discuss, and evaluate the pertinent legal standards and assumptions, in the context of the pertinent psychological science. The seminar will culminate with group presentations of amicus briefs/white papers/judicial opinions that take a position on the law of implicit bias in each of the seminar's four domains.

Meets with Psy 8210