Cognitive Biases Are Bad for Business
June 20, 2013

The conventional wisdom in classical economics is that we humans are “rational actors” who, by our nature, make decisions...

The Anchoring Effect: How The Mind is Biased by First Impressions
June 19, 2013

A psychological bias that illuminates how we negotiate, predict our emotions, agree a price and much more... To illustrate the anchoring effect, let's say I ask you how old Mahatma Gandhi was when he died. For half of you I'll preface the question by saying: "Did he die before or after the age of 9?" For the other half I'll say: "Did he die before or after the age of 140?" Obviously these are not very helpful statements. Anyone who has any clue who Gandhi was will know that he was definitely...

How to Pick a Winner: A Psychological Trick to Improve the Odds
June 18, 2013

Does thinking too specifically about a bet make you more likely to lose? I'm not, as they say, a betting man; but if I were I'd put down the form book and spend my time studying a new paper by Yoon et al. (2013) published inPsychological Science. The Korean researchers are fascinated by the question of whether thinking more carefully about a bet can actually make you less likely to win. In their first test of the idea they looked at 1.9 billion bets placed on baseball and soccer through...

The Neuroscience of Decision Making and Our Standards for Assessing Competence to Consent
June 17, 2013

Rapid advances in neuroscience may enable us to identify the neural correlates of ordinary decision making. Such knowledge...

What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About Settlement Negotiations
June 17, 2013

There is much that the latest developments in neuroscience can teach legal professionals about negotiations. This is particularly true when it comes to how people process information and make decisions. Mediators and lawyers alike can benefit particularly from what neuroscientists have revealed about priming and framing, two potent filtering mechanisms that can either inflame the emotional barriers to settlement or potentially defuse them.

Are Law Schools Neglecting Half of the Brain?
June 16, 2013

The notion that law schools should teach more practical skills and hands-on training is in vogue these days. But Paula...

Psychology and Lawyering: Coalescing the Field
June 11, 2013

Friday, Feb. 21 and Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014 UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law Las Vegas, Nevada In recent years both...

Ramblings from A Neuro-Linguist: Putting Descartes Before The Horse
June 7, 2013

[Author's Warning: This entry involves references to and discussions about the system of Cartesian Coordinates and how it might assist mediators in reality testing and reframing. Readers with a Math Phobia are advised to proceed with cautious abandonment.] [Author’s postscript: As I finish writing this, it becomes increasingly clear to me that some readers may find the ideas in this entry, if not a bit bizarre, then certainly off the wall. I promise next month, I will write something a little...

Negotiation As Improv From the Harvard Program on Negotiation
June 5, 2013

My business partner,Lisa Gates, is an actor and improv artist as well as a negotiation consultant and adult learning specialist....

Legal Loop: The Latest in Android Apps for Lawyers
June 3, 2013

A while ago I wrote an article that focused on resources for Android-toting lawyers and promised that I’d follow up with...