Cognitive
Statutory Interpretation on the Bench: A Survey of Forty-Two Judges on the Federal Courts of Appeals
June 15, 2018
This Article reports the results of a survey of a diverse group of forty-two federal appellate judges concerning their approaches to statutory interpretation. The study reveals important differences between their approaches and the approach that the Supreme Court purports to take. It also helps to substantiate the irrelevance of the enduring, but now-boring, textualism-versus-purposivism debate. None of the judges we interviewed was willing to associate himself or herself with “textualism” without...
June 15, 2018
This Article reports the results of a survey of a diverse group of forty-two federal appellate judges concerning their approaches to statutory interpretation. The study reveals important differences between their approaches and the approach that the Supreme Court purports to take. It also helps to substantiate the irrelevance of the enduring, but now-boring, textualism-versus-purposivism debate. None of the judges we interviewed was willing to associate himself or herself with “textualism” without...
Do Checklists Work?
June 15, 2018
"Checklists" have long-endured as an inexpensive--and seemingly efficacious--way to reduce risk flowing from tasks requiring complex decision-making. In many complex endeavors--e,g, piloting an aircraft or surgery--checklists are ubiquitous. Indeed, checklists are so pervasive that their efficaciousness is typically assumed or implied. Exploiting a natural experiment that arose in Seattle and involved state department of health restaurant inspection protocols, in Do Checklists Make a Difference?...
June 15, 2018
"Checklists" have long-endured as an inexpensive--and seemingly efficacious--way to reduce risk flowing from tasks requiring complex decision-making. In many complex endeavors--e,g, piloting an aircraft or surgery--checklists are ubiquitous. Indeed, checklists are so pervasive that their efficaciousness is typically assumed or implied. Exploiting a natural experiment that arose in Seattle and involved state department of health restaurant inspection protocols, in Do Checklists Make a Difference?...
Huang, Hui, & Li on Federal Judge Ideology & Litigation Risk
June 11, 2018
Allen Huang (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology - Department of Accounting), Kai Wai Hui (The University of Hong Kong (HKU) - Department of Accounting), & Reeyarn Zhiyang Li (University of Mannheim - Accounting and Taxation; Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) have posted Federal Judge Ideology: A New Measure of Ex-Ante Litigation Risk on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Drawing on the political theory of judicial decision making, our paper proposes a parsimonious ex ante...
June 11, 2018
Allen Huang (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology - Department of Accounting), Kai Wai Hui (The University of Hong Kong (HKU) - Department of Accounting), & Reeyarn Zhiyang Li (University of Mannheim - Accounting and Taxation; Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) have posted Federal Judge Ideology: A New Measure of Ex-Ante Litigation Risk on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Drawing on the political theory of judicial decision making, our paper proposes a parsimonious ex ante...
Chess Grandmasters Show the Same Longevity Advantage as Elite Athletes
June 10, 2018
It’s well established that elite athletes have a longer life expectancy than the general public. A recent review of over 50 studies comprising half a million people estimated the athletic advantage to be between 4 and 8 years, on average. This comes as little surprise. One can easily imagine how the same genetic endowment and training necessary to develop physical prowess in sport might also manifest in physical health. Now for the first time, a study published in PLOS One (open access) shows...
June 10, 2018
It’s well established that elite athletes have a longer life expectancy than the general public. A recent review of over 50 studies comprising half a million people estimated the athletic advantage to be between 4 and 8 years, on average. This comes as little surprise. One can easily imagine how the same genetic endowment and training necessary to develop physical prowess in sport might also manifest in physical health. Now for the first time, a study published in PLOS One (open access) shows...
Boost: Improving Mindfulness, Thinking, and Diversity
June 8, 2018
Many important decisions can be difficult; require focused, cognitive attention; produce delayed, noisy feedback; benefit from careful and clear thinking; and quite often trigger anxiety, stress, and other strong, negative emotions. Much empirical, experimental, and field research finds that we often make decisions leading to outcomes we judge as suboptimal. These studies have contributed to the popularity of the idea of nudging people to achieve better outcomes by changing how choices and information...
June 8, 2018
Many important decisions can be difficult; require focused, cognitive attention; produce delayed, noisy feedback; benefit from careful and clear thinking; and quite often trigger anxiety, stress, and other strong, negative emotions. Much empirical, experimental, and field research finds that we often make decisions leading to outcomes we judge as suboptimal. These studies have contributed to the popularity of the idea of nudging people to achieve better outcomes by changing how choices and information...
Malleable Lies: Communication and Cooperation in a High Stakes TV Game Show
June 7, 2018
We investigate the credibility of non-binding pre-play statements about cooperative behavior, using data from a high-stakes TV game show in which contestants play a variant on the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma. We depart from the conventional binary approach of classifying statements as promises or not, and propose a more fine-grained two-by-two typology inspired by the idea that lying aversion leads defectors to prefer statements that are malleable to ex-post interpretation as truths. Our empirical...
June 7, 2018
We investigate the credibility of non-binding pre-play statements about cooperative behavior, using data from a high-stakes TV game show in which contestants play a variant on the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma. We depart from the conventional binary approach of classifying statements as promises or not, and propose a more fine-grained two-by-two typology inspired by the idea that lying aversion leads defectors to prefer statements that are malleable to ex-post interpretation as truths. Our empirical...
Law and Psychology Grows Up, Goes Online, and Replicates
June 3, 2018
Over the last 30 years, legal scholars have increasingly deployed experimental studies, particularly hypothetical scenarios, to test intuitions about legal reasoning and behavior. That movement has accelerated in the last decade, facilitated in large part by cheap and convenient Internet participant recruiting platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk. The widespread use of online subjects, a practice that dramatically lowers the barriers to entry for experimental research, has been controversial. At the same...
June 3, 2018
Over the last 30 years, legal scholars have increasingly deployed experimental studies, particularly hypothetical scenarios, to test intuitions about legal reasoning and behavior. That movement has accelerated in the last decade, facilitated in large part by cheap and convenient Internet participant recruiting platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk. The widespread use of online subjects, a practice that dramatically lowers the barriers to entry for experimental research, has been controversial. At the same...
The Warriors’ Key Chess Piece Is Also a Chess Fanatic
June 1, 2018
NBA playoff series are chess matches. So it’s a good thing that Klay Thompson really, really loves chess. Thompson plays chess as often as he plays basketball: almost every day. “It’s a great game,” he said. He owns multiple chess boards at home. He carries a magnetic chess set on road trips. And he juggles several chess games on his phone, which is a problem for Thompson: He’s not good at chess on his phone. What he appreciates most about chess are the moments when...
June 1, 2018
NBA playoff series are chess matches. So it’s a good thing that Klay Thompson really, really loves chess. Thompson plays chess as often as he plays basketball: almost every day. “It’s a great game,” he said. He owns multiple chess boards at home. He carries a magnetic chess set on road trips. And he juggles several chess games on his phone, which is a problem for Thompson: He’s not good at chess on his phone. What he appreciates most about chess are the moments when...
Myths About Abraham Maslow and Self-Actualisation
May 31, 2018
Maslow’s most penetrating idea is that we have a hierarchy of needs, proceeding from physiological needs like water or warmth, through safety, love, esteem and then self-actualisation. He argued that lower needs occupy our attention when they are unmet and make it more difficult to fulfil the higher ones – including self-actualisation, which is about becoming the self you always had the potential to be. Compton first deals with the charge that this work is ascientific. He finds there is a lack...
May 31, 2018
Maslow’s most penetrating idea is that we have a hierarchy of needs, proceeding from physiological needs like water or warmth, through safety, love, esteem and then self-actualisation. He argued that lower needs occupy our attention when they are unmet and make it more difficult to fulfil the higher ones – including self-actualisation, which is about becoming the self you always had the potential to be. Compton first deals with the charge that this work is ascientific. He finds there is a lack...
On Preferring A to B, While Also Preferring B to A
May 29, 2018
In important contexts, people prefer option A to option B when they evaluate the two separately, but prefer option B to option A when they evaluate the two jointly. In consumer behavior, politics, and law, such preference reversals present serious puzzles about rationality and behavioral biases. They are often a product of the pervasive problem of "evaluability." Some important characteristics of options are difficult or impossible to assess in separate evaluation, and hence choosers disregard or downplay...
May 29, 2018
In important contexts, people prefer option A to option B when they evaluate the two separately, but prefer option B to option A when they evaluate the two jointly. In consumer behavior, politics, and law, such preference reversals present serious puzzles about rationality and behavioral biases. They are often a product of the pervasive problem of "evaluability." Some important characteristics of options are difficult or impossible to assess in separate evaluation, and hence choosers disregard or downplay...
