Steven L. Willborn – författare

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:

In answering them, the book:

Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making invites the legal and psychology communities to work together in solving some of our most pressing social problems.

From Merck to McDonald’s to Firestone, high-profile tort cases inspire high-powered tort reform debate. Simultaneously they fuel public perceptions of spurious claims and outlandish awards, while fostering professional perceptions of an unwieldy legal system. The contributors to Civil Juries and Civil Justice bring order, as well as a much-needed reality check, to the situation. This insightful, multidisciplinary volume provides in-depth case data, empirical findings, and original research, synthesizing a range of seemingly irreconcilable legal and psychological viewpoints. Leading scholars consider the roots of juryphobia, the growth trajectories of damage awards, alternative means of obtaining civil justice, and the role of the social sciences in formulating legal policy while addressing these key questions of the tort reform controversy:

Civil Juries and Civil Justice will attract readers across numerous disciplines: forensic psychologists and psychiatrists, attorneys, sociologists, criminologists, political scientists, and policy makers. Because of its research/practice orientation, professors and students in these fields will find it a worthy text for course adoption.

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:

• Applying Social Analytic Jurisprudence to age and disability discrimination.

• The psychological origins and social pervasiveness of ageism.

• Growing older, working more: the boomer generation on the job.

• Limitations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

• Disability and procedural fairness in the workplace.

• 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.