The legal regulation of psychology: Scientific and professional interactions.

Sales, Bruce D.

doi:10.1037/10085-001

Cited by 20 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…This suggests that the process of policy influence should not be just a one time effort, but rather one step in a larger process of policy change. When policies are implemented, they should be evaluated to determine whether they accomplish their intended goals, whether they work in the planned way, and whether they create undesirable and unanticipated effects (Sales, 1983). Subsequently, findings should be communicated to policy makers so that, when necessary, they can change the legislation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In seeking explanations for their data, psychologists have become increasingly astute in ferreting out, examining, and questioning assumptions taken for granted in society. They recognize that policy is sometimes predicated on faulty assumptions and that the most important contribution psychologists may have to offer is evidence bearing on the validity of the assumptions (Keisler, 1985;Sales, 1983). Because basic assumptions can limit the researchers' ability to generate alternative solutions, forcing the "researcher into a number of predetermined actions that are taken for granted and may constrain the social problem-solving process" (Seidman, 1983, p. 59), it may be important to challenge them even before beginning research.…”

Section: Generalizabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Community psychologists in state legislative decision making

Wursten

Sales

1988

American J of Comm Psychol

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The inherently political nature of community psychology makes it critical for the community psychologist to be able to understand and sometimes influence the political process. With this goal comes the responsibifity of carefully considering the limits of our scientific knowledge base. This paper considers those limits, reviews the literature on strategies for influencing legislative decision making, and addresses the implications of those #mits for ongoing involvement in policy influence.Community psychology is inherently political. Its values reflect the right of individuals and groups to be different and assert that all people are worthwhile and deserve equal access to material and psychological resources (Rappaport, 1977). Consistent with these values, George Miller (1969) stated, "Nothing would be more relevant to human welfare.., than to discover how best to give psychology away." Miller contended that there is a body of knowledge about human behavior which could potentially contribute to human welfare and that the task of the psychologist is to make that knowledge generally available. The community psychologist frequently takes his or her activities a step farther, not only by sharing information but also by attempting to provide services to underprivileged groups, by designing and implementing new programs, or by evaluating and revising existing ones. Developing programs to serve the homeless, supporting the right of mentally ill individuals to be maintained in the community and facilitating their access to treatment, medication, housing, and a safe environment, or, for those who are con-IAI1 correspondence should be sent to April Wursten,

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Generalizabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Community psychologists in state legislative decision making

Wursten

Sales

1988

American J of Comm Psychol

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“…This emerging view that CSJ contains differing levels of prototypes also finds an analog in the law. As Sales (1983) has noted, under the scope of law we can speak about three levels-laws, legal systems, and legal processes-and the law's behavioral assumptions at each of those levels are quite different and distinct. In Commonsense Justice (Finkel, 1995b), where I made the contrast to black-letter law, I spoke of jurors' differing notions-of the law, what is just and fair, what the law ought to be-and how these notions are not equivalent: Some go to persons, to the ways and whys they think, feel, and behave as they do, which would include criminal prototypes; some go to specific laws or crimes (i.e., specific crime prototypes); and some go to theories of culpability and punishment more generally (i.e., broad policy and value prototypes).…”

Section: A Different Sort Of Problem a Different Sort Of Prototypementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the public-policy arena, with more accurate gauges providing clearer readings, CSJ can bring citizens' societal goals and basic-values prototypes, along with their variations, to what has been an all too shallow discourse, while the unearthed facts simultaneously act to weed the worst of the prototypes. And for the law, CSJ offers enriched notions of human nature, specific crimes, and fairness and justice principles more generally, as these impact on laws, legal systems, and legal processes (Sales, 1983). Looking down such a future road, if objectivity is brought to subjectivity and if a factual story of prototypes emerges, then CSJ, once but a heuristic, may become quite consequential.…”

Section: Csj and No End Of The Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Commonsense justice, psychology, and the law: Prototypes that are common, senseful, and not.

Finkel

1997

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

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Jurors' "commonsense justice" (CSJ) in general and their specific prototypes have been under indictment, as the charges (i.e., the critics' prototypes) have grown more strident and public of late. The critics' and jurors' prototypes are examined to see which are senseful, insubstantial, and unsubstantiated, and to forward this aim, prototypes are disaggregated as to type: prototypes about criminals, specific crimes, and broad societal goals and values. The prototypical picture expands further, as social science's prototypes are brought under scrutiny, along with the question of whether those methods and even the "science" (i.e., nomothetic or idiothetic) are right for the assessment task. Do researchers capture the depth and breadth of CSJ or do they leave but a "prototype of the prototypes" standing in its stead, as easily toppled as a straw man? In the end, prototypes are left standing but with greater objectivity bolstering their subjective roots, offering psychology and law a more comprehensive theory and law and public policy more enriched notions of human nature, specific crimes, and justice principles.Prototypes-both a recurrent topic in this special theme issue and a constituent element of commonsense justice (CSJ)-seem to germinate and generate so casually and carelessly, as to appear almost profligate. Although they "be fruitful and multiply," it is not their fecundity that places them in the dock but growing concerns about their genesis, their very substance, and their consequences for law and public policy. Some critics of CSJ have already transmuted their concern into conviction that something is terribly wrong in this garden of prototypes, and decidedly wrong for law and public policy about following this sort of garden path.Specifically, these critics see jurors' prototypes as nonsensical, caricatured distortions at best. And then there is worse. For standing behind or contained within these prototypes, the critics see shadowy sentiments-superficial, prejudicial, base, and off-base sentiments-that they believe ought to be nipped in the bud, rather than given room to flower in courtroom deliberations. For when such prototypes and sentiments do flower and invade jurors' decision making, the critics frequently judge the latter to be wrongheaded and judge their resultant verdicts to be frequently wrongful. In summary, the indictment concludes that CSJ is an empty oxymoron, a path that will not lead law and public policy anywhere but in exactly the wrong direction.I begin this article with prototypes and CSJ in the dock, where criticisms, charges, and an indictment have been leveled, hurled, and brought. I analyze those specific charges, as to whether they stand on fact or whether they are, at base, only prototypes themselves, gossamer and empty. Throughout this article, I offer rebuttal evidence for CSJ, sometimes invoking my own work and sometimes citing from the articles in this issue. But I go further than analyzing charges and

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“…It was concerned with empirically testing whether laws were achieving their explicit and implicit goals. This approach to law and behavioral (and social) science interactions asserts that almost all laws are based upon behavioral, social, and economic assumptions the validity of which can be empirically determined (Sales, 1983;Sales & Hafemeister, 1985;Shuman, 1984). Thus, when a federal court ordered that mentally ill persons residing in state hospitals be accorded their right to privacy, utilitariandriven research was able to demonstrate that the institutional changes aimed at fblfilling the court order did not achieve their goal (O'Reilly & Sales, 1987& Sales, , 1986.…”

Section: Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%