On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, Michael OHara wrote:
 
> Lastly, do I believe that any one of us has ever successfully purged all
> (or even most) of our discriminatory social/psychological programming when
> making employment decision?  No.  I assume we always operate subject to
> that burden.  However, I find the effort to extinguish such discrimination
> is not furthered by quickly yielding to it, and less still furthered by
> creating institutional structures that encourage such discrimination.  A
> far more vexing question is institutional tolerance, given I assume it if
> foolish for the law to rail against a nearly immutable human condition.  I
> am willing to assert that institutional structures and responses should be
> different for actions as compared to beliefs.
>
 
The preceding excerpt seems to illustrate some of the issues
dealt with in a recent Columbia Law Journal article, "The Content
of Our Categories: A Cognitive Bias Approach to Discrimination
and Equal Employment Opportunity," by Linda Hamilton Krieger.  Ms.
Krieger offers an alternative explanation for biased employment
decisions.  On one hand is the legal approach, in which all biased
decisions result from some tacit or articulated discriminatory intent; on
the other is that normal human cognitive functioning results in
categorization that may be subject to judgment errors and thus lack
discriminatory motivation.
 
I post this thought for several reasons.  First, to keep this thread
alive on an academic theme.  Second, perhaps this is the type of
discussion that will be part of the panel presentation of "Cognition
Theory and Our Discipline," scheduled for the Plenary Breakfast at the
National Meeting in August.  Finally, this article is an example of the
integration of social science and legal research, which was the subject
of a panel session at last year's National Meeting.
 
Among the things we discussed in that session were selection of topics
and possible publication outlets.  Clearly, Ms. Krieger found a topic of
great interest and a quality outlet.  Furthermore, her article shows that the
integration of the disciplines does not require quantitative analysis
(i.e., statistics).
 
For that type of quantitative social science research that does deal with
legal issues, there have been several recent publications.  I would refer
you to a recent edition (Aug, 1995, Vol. 80(4)) of the Journal of Applied
Psychology, which I am told by others here in the Management Department is
an "A"  journal.  Three articles deal with legal issues:
"Comprehensibility of Approved Journal Instructions in Capital Murder
Cases,"  "Facilitating Children's Eyewitness Recall with Revised Cognitive
Interview," and "Who Should Stand Next to the Suspect? Problems in the
Assessment of Lineup Fairness."  Again, topics of interest and a quality
outlet.  The one thing that is noticeable in these articles is that none
of the authors have law degrees.  Thus, it makes me think -- did the
authors get the law right, are there practical legal implications that
these psychologists missed in testing their theory?  Clearly, there was
potential for a legal scholar to contribute to and/or criticize this work.
 
In summary, I think there is a strong place in our field for integrated
law and social science research.  It is not easy, but there is little
that we do that is.