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Barbara Spellman

Barbara Spellman

I am a Cognitive/Social Psychologist with an appointment in a Law School. (I also have a law degree.) My basic interests are in thinking, reasoning, and social cognition; and my law research considers different ways to apply psychology to law and to public policy more generally. I teach the standard Evidence course but also many courses (mostly seminars) with Psych/Law themes, for example: Behavioral Decision Making and Law, Psychological Foundations of Evidence Law (I have a new book on that topic), and a standard Psychology and Law course. From 2010-15 I was Editor of Perspectives on Psychological Science and spent a lot of time on issues of Open and Changing Science.

Primary Interests:

  • Applied Social Psychology
  • Causal Attribution
  • Judgment and Decision Making
  • Law and Public Policy
  • Research Methods, Assessment
  • Social Cognition

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Journal Articles:

Other Publications:

  • Robinson, P. H., & Spellman, B. A. (2005). Sentencing decisions: Matching the decisionmaker to the decision nature. Columbia Law Review, 105(4), 1124-1161.
  • Spellman, B. A., Gilbert, E., & Corker, K. R. (in press). Open science. In J. Wixted (Ed.), The Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume V: Methodology.
  • Spellman, B. A., Kincannon, A., & Stose, S. (2005). The relation between counterfactual and causal reasoning. Invited chapter to appear in D. R. Mandel, D. J. Hilton, & P. Catellani (Eds.), The psychology of counterfactual thinking. London: Routledge Research.

Courses Taught:

  • Advanced Experimental Methods
  • Behavioral Decision Making and Law
  • Causal and Counterfactual Reasoning
  • Cognition
  • Evidence
  • Psychology and Law: Cognitive and Social Issues
  • Psychology of Information and Persuasion
  • Psychology of Wrongful Convictions
  • Research Methods and Data Analysis
  • Thinking About Thinking
  • Thinking and Reasoning

Barbara Spellman
580 Massie Road
University of Virginia School of Law
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
United States of America

  • Phone: (434) 243-4925

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