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25 Conn. L. Rev. 1067 (1992-1993)
Social Science Contributions to the Law: Understanding and Predicting Behavior

handle is hein.journals/conlr25 and id is 1083 raw text is: SOCIAL SCIENCE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LAW: UNDERSTANDING AND PREDICTING BEHAVIOR Sharon D. Herzberger* I. INTRODUCTION T ODAY, as we examine the world of law, we find substantial in- volvement of social scientists. Social scientists are conducting re- search on many of the topics of interest to legal decisionmakers, partic- ularly in the areas of criminal, family, mental health, and discrimination law.1 One finds social scientists helping the court to make judgments about who would make the better parent in custody cases and about the likelihood that a given person will commit a violent act. Social scientists also participate in legal proceedings by giving opinions about the validity of eyewitness testimony and by rendering judgments about a child's retraction of a sexual abuse charge. They provide statistical and methodological expertise to courts attempting to sort through discrimination complaints. Some social scientists become involved with legal proceedings at the invitation of a judge, plaintiff, or defendant. Others never enter a courtroom or are queried by an attor- ney; their research efforts take place in the laboratory and only their published results make their way into the legal record. Legal professionals and social scientists have much in common in the methodology they use to make decisions and to seek the truth about an issue under investigation; however, their methodologies also differ in significant respects. In this Article, I will, through selected example, demonstrate where the overlap of our interests can prove most useful. I will also highlight where social science applications to * Professor of Psychology, Trinity College. I would like to thank Noreen Channels for her astute comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The research by Channels and Herzberger mentioned in this paper was supported by the Hartford Institute of Criminal and Social Justice. 1. See, e.g., Phoebe C. Ellsworth & Julius G. Getman, Social Science In Legal Decision- Making, in LAW AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCeS 581, 581-636 (Leon Lipson & Stanton Wheeler eds., 1986).

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