Steven L. Willborn
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Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making
Brian H. Bornstein, Richard L. Wiener, Robert Schopp, Steven L. Willborn
- Springer
- 11 May 2007
- 9780387462189
Our basic assumption about the law is that it is designed to operate fairly and openly. But with human beings as the ultimate decision makers, how do we prevent discrimination within the legal arena, and how does the law decide whether others have behaved in a discriminatory manner? Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making examines four controversial areas involving people's perceptions of others-racial profiling, affirmative action, workplace harassment, and hate speech/hate crime-from the perspectives of psychology, decision theory, and the law.
This book's contributing experts raise these critical questions:
How valid are legal assumptions about human behavior?
What cognitive processes underlie biased behavior?
What do personal experience and situational cues contribute to decision making?
How do individuals' perceptions of the law influence their judgment?
Can psychology help legislators write more effective laws?
In answering them, the book:
Compares rational, descriptive, and normative decision-making models in legal contexts
Provides important insights into legal decision making by non-specialists (police, administrators, jurors)
Clarifies and broadens the role of social science in the courts
Promotes improved dialogue between the field of psychology and law to create a more socially aware jurisprudence.
Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making invites the legal and psychology communities to work together in solving some of our most pressing social problems. -
Disability and Aging Discrimination
Richard L. Wiener, Steven L. Willborn
- Springer
- 8 November 2010
- 9781441962935
Two things are certain in the contemporary workplace: the aging of employees, and negative attitudes toward them - especially those with disabilities-by younger colleagues and supervisors. Yet related phenomena seem less clear: how do negative stereotypes contribute to discrimination on the job? And how are these stereotypes perceived in legal proceedings?
Bringing theoretical organization to an often unfocused literature, Disability and Aging Discrimination offers research in these areas at the same level of rigor as research into racial and gender discrimination. The book applies Social Analytic Jurisprudence, a framework for testing legal assumptions regarding behavior, and identifies controversies and knowledge gaps in age-discrimination and disability law. Chapters provide historical background or present-day context for the prevalence of age and disability prejudices, and shed light on the psychosocial concepts that must be understood, in addition to medical considerations, to make improvements in legal standards and workplace policy. Among the topics covered:
o Applying Social Analytic Jurisprudence to age and disability discrimination.
o The psychological origins and social pervasiveness of ageism.
o Growing older, working more: the boomer generation on the job.
o Limitations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
o Disability and procedural fairness in the workplace.
o Cross-cultural perspectives on stigma.
The first volume of its kind, Disability and Aging Discrimination is essential reading for researchers, forensic and rehabilitation psychologists/psychiatrists, and those involved in the well-being of older and disabled workers.
