Law and Human Behavior最新文献

Objective: Field research increasingly reveals that forensic evaluators are not interchangeable. Instead, they tend to differ in their patterns of forensic opinions, in ways that likely reflect something about themselves, not just the persons evaluated. This study used data from sexually violent predator (SVP) evaluations to examine whether evaluator differences in making intermediate decisions (e.g., instrument scoring, assigning diagnoses) might explain their different patterns of final opinions.

Hypotheses: Although this study was generally exploratory and not strongly hypothesis driven, we expected that there might be evidence for a simple form of bias in which some evaluators would be more likely than others to consistently "find" indications of SVP status (i.e., consistently assigning higher risk scores and more SVP-relevant diagnoses) and, therefore, be more likely to find behavioral abnormality, the legal construct qualifying someone for commitment as an SVP.

Method: The study used data from 745 SVP evaluations conducted by 10 different evaluators who were assigned cases from the same referral stream. Potential evaluator difference variables included behavioral abnormality opinions, paraphilia and antisocial personality disorder diagnoses, and Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and Static-99 scores.

Results: Evaluator differences explained a statistically significant (p < .001) amount of variance in behavioral abnormality opinions (17%), paraphilia diagnoses (7%), and Psychopathy Checklist-Revised scores (16%). Contrary to our expectation of a simple tendency for some evaluators to find all indicators of SVP status more often than others, evaluators differed in the ways that underlying diagnoses and scores corresponded with their conclusions. The overall pattern was one in which different evaluators appeared to base their final opinions on different factors.

Conclusions: Findings reveal further evidence of substantial forensic evaluator differences in patterns of assigning instrument scores and reaching forensic conclusions. But these findings are the first to also reveal wide variability in their patterns of reaching forensic conclusions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Malingering is a particularly stigmatizing forensic opinion that may be prone to racial bias, although scant research has investigated the possibility. We examined whether forensic evaluators are more likely to opine that Black defendants or White defendants are overstating mental health symptoms.

Hypotheses: Study 1 (a field study) was exploratory. Following Study 1 findings, in Study 2 (an experiment), we hypothesized that participants would opine malingering more frequently for a Black defendant compared with a White defendant.

Method: In Study 1, we reviewed a large statewide sample of trial competence reports, of which 558 identified the defendant's race as Black or White. We coded feigning/malingering opinion and defendant race to assess associations. In Study 2, we randomly assigned forensic clinicians (N = 136; 78.7% identified as White only; 93.3% held a clinical doctoral degree; M = 10.7 years since earning highest degree) to read a mock competence report identifying the defendant's race as Black or White. Participants then provided opinions about malingering, competence, and other clinical judgments.

Results: Study 1 demonstrated that one prolific real-world evaluator identified Black defendants as feigning/malingering five times more often than White defendants, although there was no racial disproportionality in the overall sample after accounting for this one evaluator's influence. In Study 2, defendant race was not significantly associated with malingering opinions or virtually any other clinical judgments. Hospital-based evaluators opined malingering more often than evaluators in private practice, and novice evaluators opined malingering more often than experienced evaluators.

Conclusions: Assessing racial bias among forensic clinicians is complex, particularly when the target is a stigmatizing but low-base-rate opinion such as malingering. Results underscore the impact of individual evaluator differences and suggest a need for evaluators themselves, and perhaps state agencies, to monitor forensic opinions to identify potential bias and remediate outlying practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Bias is a pervasive aspect of human thought and behavior that influences how we perceive, interpret, and respond to the world around us. Although built on assumptions of fairness and equality, the justice and legal systems are not exempt from individual and structural biases, which contribute to differential outcomes and disproportionately affect individuals who are marginalized based on race, gender, socioeconomic status, education, and other factors. The special issue showcases innovative science and clinical perspectives on bias in the justice and legal systems, including its underlying mechanisms, consequences, and potential interventions. We offer a framework centered on cumulative disadvantage to conceptualize how biases can accrue and compound across different stages of the justice and legal systems. The articles examine issues involving multiple actors (e.g., police, suspects, attorneys, defendants, psychologists, probation officers, jurors, judges) engaged in various processes (e.g., stops, frisks, searches, interrogation, risk assessment, evidence review, decision-making) at different stages in the justice and legal systems (e.g., initial contact, investigation, forensic evaluation, trial, post-conviction). Much like research in other domains, the special issue articles reveal that bias in the justice and legal systems is prevalent, pernicious, and difficult to attenuate. Rigorous, transparent science and evidence-based practices targeting bias at early stages in the justice and legal systems before disadvantage accumulates are sorely needed and should inform future intervention efforts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Myside bias-the tendency to evaluate and generate evidence as well as test hypotheses in a manner biased toward prior beliefs-causes disputants in litigation to harbor overconfident expectations of judicial awards and reduces odds of settlement. Two studies tested three interventions to suppress myside bias in civil litigation settings.

Hypotheses: I predicted that the participants in the baseline conditions would exhibit myside bias in award estimates and argument ratings and that the interventions would attenuate it.

Method: Two between-subjects experimental studies using students of law (n = 164, Mage = 24.21 years, 53% female; n = 181, Mage = 20.89 years, 61% female) compared the participants' award estimates and argument ratings in a simulated civil dispute. The interventions (a) manipulated the advocates to think they represented the opposing side during initial information processing (side-switch condition), (b) required the participants to generate and evaluate arguments for both sides (dialectical condition), and (c) affected the participants' motivations by threatening dismissal in case of estimation error (goal states condition).

Results: Baseline groups in both studies displayed significant myside bias in award estimates (all ds ≥ 1.12) and argument ratings (all ds ≥ 1.29). In Study 1, the side-switch intervention eliminated bias in argument ratings (d = 0.73 and 0.72) but only reduced (d = 0.35) rather than eliminated bias in award estimates. In Study 2, the dialectical intervention reduced bias in argument ratings (d = 0.74 and 0.58) but did not eliminate it; it also failed to reduce bias in award estimates. The goal states intervention suppressed myside bias in both argument ratings (d = 0.76 and 0.82) and award estimates (d = 0.78).

Conclusions: Myside bias in litigation settings is robust and difficult to suppress. Accountability interventions show potential as bias-attenuating strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: There are documented gender disparities in the legal field. We examined whether gender representation on civil trial teams varied on the basis of (a) the degree of regional gender bias "in the air" and (b) time.

Hypotheses: We hypothesized that women were underrepresented both on trial teams and in leadership roles within those teams. We predicted that these gender disparities were exacerbated in regions with stronger regional gender bias and that these gender disparities attenuated over time.

Method: We coded attorney gender and case outcomes in real civil trials (N = 655). We created regional implicit and explicit gender bias scores based on the year and region of the case using Project Implicit data. Finally, we used order-constrained inference and Bayesian modeling to identify the best-performing models.

Results: Overall, women represented only 17% of attorneys at trial and 13% in leadership roles-indicating vast gender disparities. Gender disparities on teams and in leadership roles were more extreme in regions with high (vs. low) regional gender bias (teams: Bayes factor [BF] = 9,182; leadership: BF = 91,667) and improved over time (teams: BF = 6,420; leadership: BF = 3,495). Gender alone best predicted the likelihood of serving in a leadership role (BF = 1,197,397).

Conclusions: Female attorneys were grossly underrepresented on civil trial teams. Gender representation on teams, but not leadership roles, has improved slightly over time. Culture may also contribute; women were less represented on trial teams in regions with greater gender bias in the air-particularly in leadership roles. Despite these slight improvements in representation on trial teams over time and in low-bias regions, gender disparities in leadership roles persist over time and levels of regional bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Despite the risks inherent to custodial police interrogation, criminal suspects may waive their Miranda rights and submit to police questioning in fear that exercising their rights or remaining silent will make them appear guilty. We tested whether such a Miranda penalty exists.

Hypotheses: We predicted that people would perceive suspects who invoke their Miranda rights or sit in silence during an interrogation as more likely to be guilty than those who waive their Miranda rights.

Method: In two experiments, undergraduate psychology students (Experiment 1; N = 256) and students enrolled in law-enforcement-related degree programs (Experiment 2; N = 119) were instructed to play the role of a police officer investigating a series of crimes in which the suspect invoked his Miranda rights, sat in silence, or spoke to police. Participants evaluated each suspect along various characteristics (e.g., honest, suspicious), assessed his likely guilt, and reported how many hours they would allocate to investigating the suspect versus other potential suspects.

Results: Suspects who invoked their right to silence or remained silent, compared with those who waived their rights and spoke to police, were perceived more negatively and judged as guiltier. Participants also allocated more hours toward investigating such suspects.

Conclusions: The protective power of Miranda is eroded by the tendency for people to infer guilt from a suspect's decision to invoke Miranda or remain silent during police interrogation. This Miranda penalty violates suspects' legal protection from being penalized for exercising their constitutional rights against self-incrimination and may bias the investigation and prosecution of criminal suspects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: One concern about the use of risk assessment instruments in legal decisions is the potential for disparate impact by race or ethnicity. This means that one racial or ethnic group will experience harsher legal outcomes than another because of higher or biased risk estimates. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to synthesize research examining the real-world impact of juvenile and adult risk instruments on racial/ethnic disparities in legal decision making.

Hypotheses: Given the nature of research synthesis, we did not test formal hypotheses.

Method: Our systematic literature search as of July 2023 identified 21 articles that investigated the disparate impact of 13 risk assessment instruments on various legal outcomes. Most of these instruments were actuarial pretrial screening instruments.

Results: Our narrative synthesis indicated that there is not strong evidence of risk instruments contributing to greater system disparity. Ten articles indicated that adopting risk instruments did not create (or exacerbate preexisting) disparities, and eight articles found that instrument use reduced disparities in legal decision making. Three articles reported evidence of disparate impact of risk instruments; only one of these studies received a strong study quality assessment score. We observed a scarcity of high-quality articles that employed what we deem to be the gold standard approach for examining the disparate impact of risk instruments (i.e., pretest-posttest design).

Conclusions: The evidence signals that risk instruments can contribute to reductions in disparities across multiple stages of legal decision making. Yet study quality remains low, and most research has been conducted on decisions during the pretrial stage. More rigorous research on disparate impact across diverse legal decision points and approaches to risk assessment is needed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Across two experiments, we examined three cognitive biases (order effects, context effects, confirmatory bias) in licensed psychologists' diagnostic reasoning.

Hypotheses: Our main prediction was that psychologist-participants would seek confirming versus disconfirming information after forming an initial diagnostic hypothesis, even given multiple opportunities to seek new information in the same case. We also expected that individual differences would affect diagnostic reasoning, such that psychologists with lower (vs. higher) cognitive reflection tendencies and larger (vs. smaller) bias blind spots would be more likely to demonstrate confirmatory bias.

Method: In Study 1, we recruited 149 licensed psychologists (M = 18 years of experience; 44% women; 71% White) and exposed them to one of four randomly assigned vignettes that varied order effects (one set of symptoms in reversed orders) and context effects (court referral vs. employer referral). They rank ordered a list of four possible initial diagnostic hypotheses and received a piped follow-up choice of which of two pieces of information (confirmatory or disconfirmatory) they wanted to test their initial hypothesis. Study 2 (n = 131; M = 21 years of experience; 53% men; 68% White) replicated and extended Study 1, following the same procedure except offering three sequential choice opportunities.

Results: Both studies found robust confirmatory information seeking: 92% sought confirmatory information in Study 1, and confirmation persisted across three opportunities in Study 2 (90%, 84%, 77%), although it lowered with each opportunity (generalized logistic mixed regression model), F(2, 378) = 3.85, p = .02, η_p² = .02.

Conclusion: These findings expand a growing body of research on bias in expert judgment. Specifically, psychologists may engage in robust confirmation bias in the process of forming diagnoses. Although further research is needed on bias and its impact on accuracy, psychologists may need to take steps to reduce confirmatory reasoning processes, such as documenting evidence for and against each decision element. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Native Americans are vastly overrepresented in U.S. jails and people in rural communities face unique barriers (e.g., limited public transportation and services) that may impact how well pretrial risk assessments predict outcomes. Yet, these populations are understudied in the literature examining the predictive validity and, more importantly, the potential predictive bias of pretrial risk assessments. We sought to address these gaps.

Hypotheses: We had three aims: (a) examine the validity of Public Safety Assessment (PSA) scores in predicting pretrial outcomes in a county with a high degree of rurality, (b) compare predictive validity and test for predictive bias among Native American and White people, and (c) compare predictive validity and test for predictive bias among men and women.

Method: Our sample comprised 4,570 closed cases involving people released on personal recognizance bonds over a 3.5-year period. About two thirds were Native American and men. The PSA was completed and outcome data were collected as part of routine pretrial practice.

Results: In slightly more than one third of cases, people failed to appear or were rearrested during the pretrial period. In the full sample, PSA scores demonstrated poor validity in predicting failure to appear but fair validity in predicting new arrest. Further analyses revealed predictive bias as a function of both race and sex in the prediction of failure to appear. In contrast, we did not find evidence of bias in the prediction of new criminal arrest, although predictive validity was slightly better for White people and men.

Conclusion: Our findings raise concerns regarding the use of PSA scores to inform pretrial decisions related to risk for failure to appear in rural communities and among Native American people. They also highlight concerns regarding reliance on static factors as well as the need for research on the validity of pretrial risk assessments in these populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Prior research suggests that jurors may commit the fundamental attribution error when evaluating confession evidence (i.e., failing to recognize the situational pressures inherent to coercive interrogations) and exhibit belief perseverance when presented with expert testimony or judicial instructions seeking to remediate juror knowledge. Given mixed findings regarding the use of safeguards that might assist jurors in rendering appropriate decisions, the current research examined the effectiveness of reason elaboration instructions.

Hypotheses: We hypothesized that instructing mock jurors to engage in reason elaboration (Experiments 1, 2, and 4: list reasons; Experiment 3: make an initial judgment and then list reasons for the opposite of their initial belief) for why an individual might confess may help them to become more sensitive to situational and dispositional confession risk factors. We expected that reason elaboration instructions would lead to fewer convictions when a coercive interrogation was presented, but not in cases in which a noncoercive interrogation was presented (i.e., a sensitivity effect).

Method: Across four experiments, jury-eligible participants (N = 1,319) read a murder trial transcript and then responded to items measuring perceived interrogation coerciveness, defendant vulnerability, and verdict decision. We manipulated interrogation approach (noncoercive vs. coercive) and reason listing for a true and/or false confession.

Results: Across all four experiments, mock jurors demonstrated appropriate knowledge of false confession risk factors, and there was no interactive effect of our reason elaboration task with interrogation condition.

Conclusions: Reason elaboration does not appear to be an effective safeguard for debiasing and improving sensitivity in jurors' evaluations of confession evidence. Jurors appeared relatively proficient in distinguishing between coercive and noncoercive interrogation tactics. Future research should assess alternative approaches that can leverage mock jurors' knowledge of appropriate risk factors and further improve their decision making. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).