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Porträttbild av Lena Wahlberg. Foto.

Lena Wahlberg

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Porträttbild av Lena Wahlberg. Foto.

Generalization in Legal Argumentation

Författare

  • Frank Zenker
  • Christian Dahlman
  • Sverker Sikström
  • Lena Wahlberg
  • Farhan Sarwar

Summary, in English

When interpreting a natural language argument that generalizes over a contextually relevant category, audiences are likely to activate the category prototype and transfer its characteristics onto category instances. A generalized argument can thus appear more (respectively less) persuasive than one mentioning a specific category instance, provided the argument’s claim is more (less) warranted for the prototype than for the instance (positive and negative prototype effect). To investigate this effect in legal contexts using mock-scenarios, professional and lay judges at Swedish courts evaluated the persuasiveness of arguments giving a generalized or a specific description of an eyewitness. The generalized version described the witness either as an alcohol-intoxicated person or as a child, while the specific version varied both the amount of alcohol consumed (two vs. five glasses of wine) and the child’s age (four vs. 12 years). To investigate the effect of legal expertise on argument selection, moreover, law and social science students evaluate the persuasiveness of both argument versions. Though we observed statistically significant prototype effects as well as expertise effects, results were mixed and sometimes ran counter to normative expectation.

Avdelning/ar

  • Teoretisk filosofi
  • Law, Evidence and Cognition (LEVIC)
  • Juridiska institutionen
  • Institutionen för psykologi
  • Health Law

Publiceringsår

2020

Språk

Engelska

Sidor

80-99

Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie

Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice

Volym

20

Issue

1

Dokumenttyp

Artikel i tidskrift

Förlag

Routledge

Ämne

  • Law (excluding Law and Society)
  • Psychology (excluding Applied Psychology)

Nyckelord

  • Argumentation
  • decision-making
  • evidence
  • expertise effect
  • generalization
  • lay judge
  • legal context
  • persuasiveness
  • professional judge
  • prototype effect

Status

Published

Forskningsgrupp

  • Law, Evidence and Cognition (LEVIC)
  • Health Law

ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt

  • ISSN: 2473-2850