The design of legal institutions is based on implicit and explicit assumptions about human behavior, for example assumptions about how people individually or collectively respond to new information, assess risks, or decide whom to trust or fear, about what motivates people to forgive or to seek vengeance, or about how to promote or discourage empathy. The interdisciplinary study of emotion has offered valuable insights into whether these assumptions about human behavior are well grounded. The next step is to explore how generalizable these insights are: that is, whether emotional dynamics remain stable across institutional contexts. For example, rules seeking to promote forgiveness might be workable and desirable in victim-offender mediation involving juvenile offenders, but not in capital litigation, domestic violence court or national truth and reconciliation commissions. Individual risk preferences may vary depending on institutional settings, and these preferences may affect the design of health plans, environmental protections, or contract enforcement mechanisms. The dynamics of emotional contagion in jury deliberations may differ from those in negotiation settings or stratified workplaces.

This conference will bring together scholars working in philosophy, neuroscience, neuroeconomics, sociology, psychology, political science and other disciplines exploring the complex interaction between emotion and social structure to consider both how institutional context affects the experience and expression of emotion, and how emotion norms affect the shape and operation of legal institutions. It will be open to the public. Further information will be posted shortly. See the conference website at http://www.law.uchicago.edu/lawecon/events/emotions.html or contact Susan Bandes at sbandes@uchicago.edu or Marjorie Holme at mholme@uchicago.edu with any questions.