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Implicit Biases in Trial Settings

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Encyclopedia of Law and Economics

Definition

Implicit racial biases are shifts in judgment caused by automatic and/or unconscious attitudes/stereotypes held towards a racial group. In this context, “automatic” means that the bias occurs without any need for attention and that it is difficult to control, whereas “unconscious” means that introspection does not reveal the attitude/stereotype.

Introduction

In the last decades, studies in behavioral economics and psychology have highlighted the existence of various behavioral patterns that are inconsistent with the rational choice theory (Kahneman 2011 and references therein). Many of these behavioral patterns are relevant for the study of law and policy-making (Jolls et al. 1998). Part of this literature focuses also on implicit biases (e.g., Jolls and Sunstein 2006; McAdams and Ulen 2009; Teichman and Zamir 2014, Dominioni 2020). Although implicit biases do not relate only to race (but, for instance, also to gender), most of these studies within behavioral law and...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dublin City University, School of Law and Government, Dublin, Ireland

    Goran Dominioni

  2. Institute of Law and Economics, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Evangelia Nissioti

Authors
  1. Goran Dominioni
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  2. Evangelia Nissioti
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  2. Dept DiGSPES, Univ del Piemonte Orientale Dept DiGSPES, Alessandria, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

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Dominioni, G., Nissioti, E. (2021). Implicit Biases in Trial Settings. In: Marciano, A., Ramello, G.B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_668-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_668-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-7883-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7883-6

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Implicit Biases in Trial Settings
    Published:
    07 September 2021

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_668-2

  2. Original

    Trial (Implicit Biases)
    Published:
    22 February 2017

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_668-1

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