Maggie Wittlin

Cultural Cognition Lab
Yale Law School 2011

Lab Projects

The Results of Deliberation

Several Cultural Cognition studies have demonstrated that cultural values influence individual jurors' factual findings. I am working to expand those findings from individual jurors to juries, investigating whether group deliberation exacerbates or mitigates the effects of cultural cognition. Using a deliberation model developed by Robert MacCoun, I specify the demographic or cultural composition of a venire and simulate jury verdicts in different cases. Read a draft of the paper here.

Synthetic Biology Risk Perceptions

With members of the Cultural Cognition Project and a classmate, I am studying how values could influence synthetic biology risk perceptions as the field moves into the public consciousness. We are looking at how to communicate information about synthetic biology in order to best facilitate public deliberation.

Publications

Law

Note, Buckling Under Pressure: An Empirical Test of the Expressive Effects of Law, 28 Yale J. on Reg 419 (2011).

Some Science Writing

Science and Democracy, Seed Magazine, January/February 2008.

Seeing the Unseeable, Seed Magazine, July/August 2007.

Dead Bacteria Walking, seedmagazine.com, Oct. 20, 2006.

Looking Away May Help You Face Mental Challenges, seedmagazine.com Sep. 14, 2006.

Acting Under Surveillance, seedmagazine.com, July 19, 2006.

The Universe Before It Began, seedmagazine.com, May 22, 2006.

Is the Universe Older Than We Thought?, seedmagazine.com, May 10, 2006.

Puzzle Contests I've Won (Once)

Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest

Mental Floss's How Did You Know?

I tweet, alas.