Here is an alphabetical list of the graduate students in the psychology and law minor, along with their primary research interests. Click here to see some of their other activities and accomplishments.

Jury reforms:  Implemented and suggested reforms for criminal and civil juries, their effects on jury decision-making, and their effects on perceptions of jury decision-making.

Attorney decision-making:  Stereotypes and the use of challenges in selecting jurors; differential effects of peremptory challenges and challenges for cause.

Jury decision-making: Juror use of legally irrelevant information, the effects of rape shield laws on juror behavior, deciding damage awards.

Eyewitness testimony:  The effects of witness race and perpetrator race on eyewitness identification accuracy.

Juror decision-making: The role of empathy in determining juror verdicts, sexual abuse as a mitigating factor in child parricide cases, ideology and attributions of responsibility in rape cases, jurors' stereotypes of juvenile offenders.

Juvenile justice: Court processes and reform, decision making in child welfare cases, mental health needs of juvenile offenders, delinquency prevention.

Connection between child maltreatment, trauma, and delinquency: Long-term impact of childhood physical and sexual abuse and exposure to violence.

Public policy related to juvenile justice: Working with the juvenile justice system to develop consistent views among child psychologists, child advocates, and lawyers about what constitutes a healthy environment for raising a child.

Civil jury decision-making: Trial complexity and the influence of statistical or economic experts; the effects of information load and complex terminology; influences of experts and attorneys on damage awards; damage models and damage requests.

Differences between juror and jury decision-making: Effects of trial complexity and informational load.

Traumatization:  The effect of traumatic events on temperament and personality variables; individual differences in the psychological sequelae of traumatic experiences.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):  The incidence and development of PTSD in college populations;  protective and vulnerability mechanisms related to temperament variables in the onset/development of PTSD.

Children's eyewitness testimony: Children's memory and suggestibility in legal settings; children's performance in forensic interviews; role of social psychological variables and individual difference factors on children's eyewitness reports; children's oath-taking abilities; children's understanding of deception, truthfulness, and promises.

Adults perceptions of child witnesses: Adults' ability to detect children's deceptions and to assess children's report accuracy;  acceptance of sexual abuse as a mitigating factor in criminal trials.

Interventions: Role and impact of child sexual abuse prevention programs and child advocacy centers.

Children's eyewitness testimony: Relationship between confidence and accuracy in eyewitness reports, believability of child witnesses in legal settings, identification of cues that affect jurors' perceptions of child witness credibility.

Jury decision-making:  Death penalty and sentencing decisions in criminal cases, comparing direct and indirect methods of influencing jurors, examining effects of different types of involvement on juror decision-making.

Effects of life in prison:  Examining both long and short-term effects of incarceration on individuals, developing and assessing new methods of predicting recidivism.

Science and expertise in the legal system: Juror reactions to scientific and probabilistic evidence, especially DNA evidence (criminal trial context) and "naked statistics" evidence (civil trial context); the relationship between individual differences in attitudes toward science and judgments involving scientific evidence; the experiences of experts with the legal system; the persuasive impact of opposing expert witness testimony on the layperson.

Political ideology and punishment preferences: Cognitive and affective mediators of the relationship between political ideology and sentencing decisions; the influence of cost considerations on decisions to impose life imprisonment versus the death penalty; attitudes toward the popular yet controversial "Three Strikes You're Out" sentencing policy for repeat felony offenders.

Channeling Jury Behavior: Effects of standards of proof, general versus special verdict forms, bifurcation, and revised instructions on juror decision-making.

Surveys in Litigation: Designing surveys to measure deceptive advertising, consumer confusion, trademark dilution, and obscenity.

Gender and jury decision-making: Gender differences in jurors' decisions and in persuasive behaviors exhibited during mixed gender deliberations.

Health Psychology and Law: Issues of competency, adherence and treatment decision-making.  The effects of cognitive deficits associated with chronic disease: What are the legal ramifications of these deficits on competency to make treatment related decisions?  Competency of children and adolescents to make decisions about their treatment for chronic disease.  The role of parents in their children's medical treatment; issues related to medical neglect of children.

HIV within the prison population:  Behavioral interventions targeting the transmission of HIV and other STD's among incarcerated offenders.

Traumatization:  How child abuse may, in ways that are below conscious awareness, impact adult functioning.  Specifically research areas of repressed memory, how reactions to disclosure of abuse impact the child, and how perpetrators impact children's awareness of and memory for the abuse. Am further interested in how a history of abuse may be associated with the involvement in high risk behaviors, such as delinquency, high risk health behaviors and illegal activities.

Ethics:  Ethical issues arising out of power differentials and boundary issues in therapy relationships.