Beyond Common Sense: Psychological Science in the Courtroom [Paperback]

Eugene Borgida (Editor), Susan T. Fiske (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 27, 2007 | ISBN-10: 1405145749 | ISBN-13: 978-1405145749 | Edition: 1

Beyond Common Sense addresses the many important and controversial issues that arise from the use of psychological and social science in the courtroom. Each chapter identifies areas of scientific agreement and disagreement, and discusses how psychological science advances our understanding of human behavior beyond common sense.

• Features original chapters written by some of the leading experts in the field of psychology and law including Elizabeth Loftus, Saul Kassin, Faye Crosby, Alice Eagly, Gary Wells, Louise Fitzgerald, Craig Anderson, and Phoebe Ellsworth
• The 14 issues addressed include eyewitness identification, gender stereotypes, repressed memories, Affirmative Action and the death penalty
• Commentaries written by leading social science and law scholars discuss key legal and scientific themes that emerge from the science chapters and illustrate how psychological science is or can be used in the courts

Editorial Reviews

Review

“An excellent book on the current state of the knowledge of psychological science applied to the legal system. This book had me hooked from the moment I read the foreword … and kept me interested through the end of the last commentary … .There were numerous highlights … .The contents of this book are not just informative but timely. In summary, this book is excellent and is highly recommended for the general public, students, and legal and psychological practitioners and researchers. Borgida and Fiske make it very apparent that scientific psychologists have an understanding of human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that can aid legal decision makers.” (PsycCritiques, December 2008)

“Eugene Borgida and Susan Fiske assembled a distinguished group of psychological scientists to articulate the state of scientific findings on issues of relevance to modern litigation … .I highly recommend this book to a wide variety of audiences … .This is a timely and important volume that should be widely read. It will not be a waste of time.” (Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 2008)

Review

"This collection is a gem! It unmasks the fallacies on race and gender that pass for ‘common sense’ so skillfully that it is hard to read without shouting 'Aha!'"
–Nancy Cantor, Chancellor and President, Syracuse University

"This is a timely and extremely interesting analysis of the many ways in which psychological science can contribute to a more accurate understanding of various psychological issues often raised in legal proceedings. This book will be useful, and a very good read, for the general public as well as the psychological and legal communities."
–Sharon S. Brehm, Indiana University Bloomington, President of the American Psychological Association (2007)

"This book is an indispensable guide—for scholars and practitioners alike—to the psychological science of the legal system. Its pages are filled with important, hard-won lessons that we can turn to our advantage or ignore at our peril."
–Daniel Gilbert, Harvard University

"The legal system is also a system of perception, emotion, interpersonal relations, and judgment. It is thus crucial that lawyers, social scientists and indeed the broader public understand its psychological dimensions. This volume assembles key examples of the recent strides psychologists have made in understanding courtroom processes and the psychosocial dimensions that shape how law works in a variety of settings from workplaces to the media. It will be a vital resource for both professionals and students."
–Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council

"Incrementally, chapter by chapter, this world-class collection of scholars and researchers upends our common sense understandings of human prejudice and the law's ability to control it. Yet, just as importantly, it brings to the fore a vastly deeper understanding of these issues. It is more than a state of the art collection. It is a classic collection that, for a long time, will be indispensable to discussions of prejudice and the law, as well as the relationship between science and the public good."
–Claude M. Steele, Stanford University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (November 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1405145749
• ISBN-13: 978-1405145749
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #266,902 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Susan T. Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology, Princeton University (Ph.D., Harvard University; honorary doctorates, Université catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands).

She has written more than 250 articles and chapters, as well as editing many books and journal special issues. She has written three editions of Social Cognition (1984, 1991, 2008, each with Taylor) on how people make sense of each other. She also wrote an upper-level integrative text, Social Beings: A Core Motives Approach to Social Psychology (2004, 2010) and edited Beyond Common Sense: Psychological Science in the Courtroom (2008, with Borgida). On a regular basis, she edits the Annual Review of Psychology (with Schacter and others) and the Handbook of Social Psychology (with Gilbert and Lindzey, 5e, 2010).

Her forthcoming book (spring 2011) is about how we compare ourselves all the time, and the problems this makes for us as individuals, partners, students, employees, and citizens. The book is Envy Up, Scorn Down: How Status Divides Us.

Currently, as a social psychologist, she investigates emotional prejudices (pity, contempt, envy, and pride) at cultural, interpersonal, and neural levels, research funded by the Russell Sage Foundation (2008-2010) and previously funded by the National Science Foundation (1984-1986, 1995-1997) and the National Institutes of Health (1986-1995).

Her expert testimony in discrimination cases was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1989 landmark decision on gender bias. In 1998, she also testified before President Clinton's Race Initiative Advisory Board, and in 2001-03, she co-authored a National Academy of Science report on Methods for Measuring Discrimination. In 2004, she published a Science article explaining how ordinary people can torture enemy prisoners, through processes of prejudice and social influence.

Most recently, she won several scientific honors: the APA Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Donald T. Campbell Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science. Previously, she won the American Psychological Association's Early Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest for anti-discrimination testimony and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues' Allport Intergroup Relations Award for ambivalent sexism theory (with Glick), as well as Harvard's Graduate Centennial Medal. She was elected President of the Association for Psychological Science, President of the Foundation for the Advancement of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Her graduate students conspired to nominate her for Princeton's graduate mentoring award in 2009. She is grateful to them and to all her generous colleagues for these recognitions that all in fact reflect collaborative work. Please see her lab webpage: http://weblamp.princeton.edu/~psych/psychology/research/fiske/

Her expert witness work has familiarized her with workplace discrimination in settings from shipyards and assembly lines to international investment firms, and she has served on diversity committees in several nonprofit settings, including Princeton's Carl A. Fields Center. She grew up in Chicago's Hyde Park (Obama's neighborhood!), a stable, racially integrated community, and she still wonders why the rest of the world does not work that way. She now lives in Princeton and Vermont with her sociologist husband Doug Massey, with treasured visits by daughter, stepdaughter, stepson, and his family.