The economist John Maurice Clark once observed that prominent economic thinkers may attempt to ignore psychology, but they cannot thereby avoid psychology. Rather, he wrote, policymakers will be forced to “make [their] own, and it will be bad psychology.” The same can be said of the law.
In this seminar, we will examine the ways in which the law makes its own psychology, and we will analyze whether it is good or bad psychology. We will examine various legal doctrines, but we will not cover any area of law in a systematic fashion. This class will emphasize insights to be gleaned from social and cognitive psychology, and will spend comparatively less time on developmental or clinical psychology.