Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-09T03:45:59.519Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Expressive Law, Social Norms, and Social Groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Janice Nadler
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To understand how law works outside of sanctions or direct coercion, we must first appreciate that law does not generally influence individual behavior in a vacuum, devoid of social context. Instead, the way in which people interact with law is usually mediated by group life. In contrast to the instrumental view that assumes law operates on autonomous individuals by providing a set of incentives, the social groups view holds that a person's attitude and behavior regarding any given demand of law are generally products of the interaction of law, social influence, and motivational goals that are shaped by that person's commitments to specific in-groups. Law can work expressively, not so much by shaping independent individual attitudes as by shaping group values and norms, which in turn influence individual attitudes. In short, the way in which people interact with law is mediated by group life.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , Winter 2017 , pp. 60 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aisch, Gregor, and Keller, Josh. 2015. What Drives Gun Sales: Terrorism, Politics and Calls for Restrictions. New York Times, December 10. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/10/us/gun-sales-terrorism-obama-restrictions.html (accessed January 5, 2017).Google Scholar
Alexander, Michelle. 2012. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Baron, Jonathan, and Ritov, Ilana. 2009. The Role of Probability of Detection in Judgments of Punishment. Journal of Legal Analysis 1 (2): 553–90.Google Scholar
Baumeister, Roy F., and Leary, Mark R. 1995. The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation. Psychological Bulletin 117 (3): 497–529.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. 1968. Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach. Journal of Political Economy 76 (2): 169–217.Google Scholar
Braman, Donald. 2004. Doing Time on the Outside: Incarceration and Family Life in Urban America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Brewer, Marilynn B. 2004. Taking the Social Origins of Human Nature Seriously: Toward a More Imperialist Social Psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review 8 (2): 107–13.Google Scholar
Brown, Lisa M., Bradley, Margaret M., and Lang, Peter J. 2006. Affective Reactions to Pictures of Ingroup and Outgroup Members. Biological Psychology 71 (3): 303–11.Google Scholar
Brown, Steven M. 2015. Families That Hunt Together. NRA Ring of Freedom 6 (1): 24–41.Google Scholar
Burch, Traci. 2013. Trading Democracy for Justice: Criminal Convictions and the Decline of Neighborhood Political Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carlsmith, Kevin M., Darley, John M., and Robinson, Paul H. 2002. Why Do We Punish?: Deterrence and Just Deserts as Motives for Punishment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83 (2): 284–99.Google Scholar
Clear, Todd R. 2007. Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Colchero, M. Arantxa, Popkin, Barry M., Rivera, Juan A., and Wen Ng, Shu. 2016. Beverage Purchases from Stores in Mexico Under the Excise Tax on Sugar Sweetened Beverages: Observational Study. British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Ed.) 352:h6704.Google Scholar
Darley, John M., Robinson, Paul H., and Carlsmith, Kevin M. 2001. Ex Ante Function of the Criminal Law. Law & Society Review 35:165–90.Google Scholar
Dawes, Robyn M., van de Kragt, Alphons J. C., and Orbell, John M. 1988. Not Me or Thee But We: The Importance of Group Identity in Eliciting Cooperation in Dilemma Situations: Experimental Manipulations. Acta Psychologica 68 (1): 83–97.Google Scholar
Depoorter, Ben, and Vanneste, Sven. 2005. Norms and Enforcement: The Case Against Copyright Litigation. Oregon Law Review 84:1127–79.Google Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, and Silbey, Susan S. 1998. The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Feldmann, Linda. 2012. Why Gun Sales Spike After Mass Shootings: It's Not What You Might Think. Christian Science Monitor, July 25. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/DC-Decoder/2012/0725/Why-gun-sales-spike-after-mass-shootings-It-s-not-what-you-might-think (accessed January 5, 2017).Google Scholar
Gibson, James L., Caldeira, Gregory A., and Kenyatta Spence, Lester. 2005. Why Do People Accept Public Policies They Oppose? Testing Legitimacy Theory with a Survey‐Based Experiment. Political Research Quarterly 58 (2): 187–201.Google Scholar
Kahan, Dan M. 2001. Trust, Collective Action, and Law. Boston University Law Review 81:333–48.Google Scholar
Kahan, Dan M., and Braman, Donald. 2003. More Statistics, Less Persuasion: A Cultural Theory of Gun‐Risk Perceptions. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151 (4): 1291–1327.Google Scholar
Kahan, , Dan, M., and Braman, Donald. 2006. Cultural Cognition and Public Policy. Yale Law & Policy Review 24 (1): 149–72.Google Scholar
MacCoun, Robert J. 1993. Drugs and the Law: A Psychological Analysis of Drug Prohibition. Psychological Bulletin 113 (3): 497–512.Google Scholar
Markus, Hazel R., and Kitayama, Shinobu. 1991. Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation. Psychological Review 98 (2): 224–53.Google Scholar
McAdams, Richard H. 2015. The Expressive Powers of Law: Theories and Limits. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McAdams, Richard H., and Nadler, Janice. 2005. Testing the Focal Point Theory of Legal Compliance: The Effect of Third‐Party Expression in an Experimental Hawk/Dove Game. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 2 (1): 87–123.Google Scholar
McAdams, Richard H., and Nadler, Janice. 2008. Coordinating in the Shadow of the Law: Two Contextualized Tests of the Focal Point Theory of Legal Compliance. Law & Society Review 42 (4): 865–98.Google Scholar
Mullen, Elizabeth, and Nadler, Janice. 2008. Moral Spillovers: The Effect of Moral Violations on Deviant Behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44 (5): 1239–45.Google Scholar
Nadler, Janice. 2005. Flouting the Law. Texas Law Review 83:1399–1441.Google Scholar
Nagin, Daniel S. 1998. Criminal Deterrence Research at the Outset of the Twenty‐First Century. Crime and Justice 23:1–42.Google Scholar
Ng, M., Freeman, M. K., Fleming, T. D., Robinson, M., Dwyer‐Lindgren, L., Thomson, B., Wollum, A., Sanman, E., Wulf, S., Lopez, A. D., Murray, C. J. L., and Gakidou, E. 2014. Smoking Prevalence and Cigarette Consumption in 187 Countries, 1980–2012. Journal of the American Medical Association 311 (2): 183–92.Google Scholar
Omer, Saad B., Salmon, Daniel A., Orenstein, Walter A., de Hart, M. Patricia, and Halsey, Neal. 2009. Vaccine Refusal, Mandatory Immunization, and the Risks of Vaccine‐Preventable Diseases. New England Journal of Medicine 360 (19): 1981–88.Google Scholar
Papachristos, Andrew V., Meares, Tracey L., and Fagan, Jeffrey. 2012. Why Do Criminals Obey the Law—The Influence of Legitimacy and Social Networks on Active Gun Offenders. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 102:397–440.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A. 1985. An Economic Theory of the Criminal Law. Columbia Law Review 85 (6): 1193–1231.Google Scholar
Richtel, Matt, and Dougherty, Conor. 2015. Google's Driverless Cars Run into Problem: Cars with Drivers. New York Times, September 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/technology/personaltech/google-says-its-not-the-driverless-cars-fault-its-other-drivers.html (accessed January 5, 2017).Google Scholar
Robinson, Paul H., and Darley, John M. 2004. Does Criminal Law Deter? A Behavioural Science Investigation. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 24 (2): 173–205.Google Scholar
Robinson, Paul H., Goodwin, Geoffrey P., and Reisig, Michael D. 2010. The Disutility of Injustice. New York University Law Review 85:1940–2033.Google Scholar
Rozin, Paul. 1999. The Process of Moralization. Psychological Science 10 (3): 218–21.Google Scholar
Sanger‐Katz, M. 2016. Making a Soda Tax More Politically Palatable. New York Times, April 3. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/upshot/making-a-soda-tax-more-politically-palatable.html (accessed January 5, 2017).Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin, and Kearns, Thomas R. 1993. Beyond the Great Divide. In Law in Everyday Life, ed. Sarat, Austin and Kearns, Thomas R., 21–61. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Schauer, Frederick. 2015. The Force of Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Shavell, Steven. 1985. Criminal Law and the Optimal Use of Nonmonetary Sanctions as a Deterrent. Columbia Law Review 85 (6): 1232–62.Google Scholar
Şimşekoğlu, Özlem, and Lajunen, Timo. 2008. Social Psychology of Seat Belt Use: A Comparison of Theory of Planned Behavior and Health Belief Model. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour 11 (3): 181–91.Google Scholar
State of Illinois. n.d. Soft Drink Taxation. http://www.revenue.state.il.us/businesses/taxinformation/sales/softdrink.htm (accessed September 21, 2016).Google Scholar
Stuntz, William J. 2011. The Collapse of American Criminal Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tuerkheimer, D. 2016. Underenforcement as Unequal Protection. Boston College Law Review 57: 1287–1335.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 2006a. Psychological Perspectives on Legitimacy and Legitimation. Annual Review of Psychology 57 (1): 375–400.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 2006b. Why People Obey the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 2009. Legitimacy and Criminal Justice: The Benefits of Self‐Regulation. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 7:307–59.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., and Jackson, Jonathan. 2014. Popular Legitimacy and the Exercise of Legal Authority: Motivating Compliance, Cooperation, and Engagement. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 20 (1): 78–95.Google Scholar
Valverde, Mariana. 2012. Everyday Law on the Street: City Governance in an Age of Diversity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson‐Ryan, Tess. 2012. Transferring Trust: Reciprocity Norms and Assignment of Contract. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 9 (3): 511–35.Google Scholar