Research

The focus of the research in our laboratory has been on explaining the factors that affect why people follow or break rules. Our work focuses on testing and expanding two legal socialization models. The traditional legal socialization model focuses on explaining how legal and moral reasoning is related to rule-violating behavior based on the work of Tapp (Levine, 1979; Tapp & Kohlberg, 1979; Tapp & Levine, 1979). The integrated model of legal socialization argues that legal attitudes mediate that relation. Legal attitudes include normative status or how much participants approve of rule-violating behaviors (Cohn & White, 1990), enforcement status or how much participants approve of punishing rule-violating behaviors (Cohn & White, 1990), and Attitudes toward the Criminal Legal System scale which measures how positive respondents are toward the actors in the legal system (Martin & Cohn, 2004; Cohn & Modecki, 2007). The alternative model of legal socialization focuses on situational factors and argues that legitimacy and legal cynicism mediate between procedural justice and rule-violating behavior.

Testing legal socialization models

• Combining traditional and alternative models: NHYS
• Expanding legal socialization to non-legal contexts
• Creating a moral socialization model
• Testing the alternative model in jury decision-making

Bullying and relational aggression

• Effects of privacy, provocation, and internet versus face-to-face
• Effects of victim and perpetrator reputation
• Effects of parental and teacher legitamacy on bullying behavior

Race and racism in legal and non-legal activities

• Racial salience in jury decision-making
• Broadening race and racism to legal and non-legal contexts

Unwanted sexual and physical experiences among college students

• Panel study of changes in unwanted sexual experiences in 1988, 2000, 2006, and 2012
• Incidence of stalking, interpersonal violence and unwanted sexual experiences in New England college students