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It is believed that tunnel vision is an important factor in miscarriages of justice. Tunnel vision can be described as an excessive focus on information or evidence that confirms your theory, while paying less attention to evidence that contradicts it. Furthermore, it also increases the tendency to interpret information in such a way that it confirms your theory. This thesis researched the role of falsification in legal decision-making. Namely, how judges consider exonerating evidence and alternative scenarios. This was researched in practice through a survey, interviews, and a case study. The researcher also conducted experimental studies to determine whether the use of falsification can be increased through changing the order of evidence presentation, changing the instruction to explain the decision, or training to focus on falsification. The findings suggested that judges understand the need for falsification, but struggle to apply it in practice. Based on the experimental data, it appeared law students have more of a focus on alternative scenarios than suggested by research with members of the general public.

It is believed that tunnel vision is an important factor in miscarriages of justice. Tunnel vision can be described as an excessive focus on information or evidence that confirms your theory, while paying less attention to evidence that contradicts it. Furthermore, it also increases the tendency to interpret information in such a way that it confirms your theory. This thesis researched the role of falsification in legal decision-making. Namely, how judges consider exonerating evidence and alternative scenarios. This was researched in practice through a survey, interviews, and a case study. The researcher also conducted experimental studies to determine whether the use of falsification can be increased through changing the order of evidence presentation, changing the instruction to explain the decision, or training to focus on falsification. The findings suggested that judges understand the need for falsification, but struggle to apply it in practice. Based on the experimental data, it appeared law students have more of a focus on alternative scenarios than suggested by research with members of the general public.

Purpose: Fact finding is an important part of the job of criminal trial judges and juries. In the literature, several potential pitfalls hindering fact finding have been identified, such as context effects (i.e. an unintended effect of non-probative information on conviction) and confirmation bias (i.e. a skewed selection of and overreliance on guilt-confirming evidence and neglect of exonerating information). In the present study, the effect of irrelevant contextual information on conviction and subsequent confirmation bias was tested. Method: A sample of Dutch professional criminal trial judges (N = 105) studied a case file and decided on their conviction of the suspect’s guilt, and subsequent investigation endeavours. There were two versions of the file, differing in non-probative details that might affect conviction, such as crime severity and facial appearance of the suspect. Results: Findings suggest that context information indeed affected conviction, and the subsequent preference for guilt-confirming investigation endeavours. Conclusion: Professional judges may be susceptible to bias threatening the objectivity of legal decision-making.

This study replicates previous research that investigated the influence of rapid identification information on the interpretation of a crime scene conducted with English crime scene investigators (CSIs). Given the special circumstances under which CSIs in one country operate, the present study investigates the robustness and generalisability of the previous findings by studying whether identical decision-making phenomena are found in a replication study within a different police environment. Dutch CSIs (N = 65) participated in the same study and results are compared with the English findings. The utility of the replication study is reflected in both the revealed robustness and differences in the findings. First, the results demonstrate the robustness of the previous finding that ID information influenced the interpretation of the crime scene, even more when this information was provided after CSIs had constructed a provisional scenario. Secondly, this study revealed differences in decision-making: English CSIs used ID information to make efficient decisions by prioritising traces with direct progression opportunities for the case and disregarding those without direct opportunities, which led to a form of tunnel vision, namely the ignorance of the involvement of a second offender. Dutch CSIs showed to be less prone to bias towards traces that produced database matches. Dutch CSIs seemed to be more focused on the relation of the trace with the crime, while English CSIs are more focused on the database match. Consequently, important information was overlooked. We question whether the emphasis on efficiency in England goes at the expense of the quality of an investigation.

Newton once wrote: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Science can make progress by building on earlier research. Citation analyses can show which research is being built on. If only positive studies that confirm a hypothesis are quoted, and negative studies that undermine the same hypothesis are ignored, we experience citation bias. This bias can lead to the development of knowledge being distorted, unnecessary research being carried out and incorrect decisions being made. This dissertation investigated whether there is selective citation within the epidemiological literature, and specifically whether there is citation bias. This appears to be the case; in particular, positive studies seem to prefer to cite other positive studies, while negative studies have no citation preference for positive or negative studies.

This study replicates previous research that investigated the influence of rapid identification information on the interpretation of a crime scene conducted with English crime scene investigators (CSIs). Given the special circumstances under which CSIs in one country operate, the present study investigates the robustness and generalisability of the previous findings by studying whether identical decision-making phenomena are found in a replication study within a different police environment. Dutch CSIs (N = 65) participated in the same study and results are compared with the English findings. The utility of the replication study is reflected in both the revealed robustness and differences in the findings. First, the results demonstrate the robustness of the previous finding that ID information influenced the interpretation of the crime scene, even more when this information was provided after CSIs had constructed a provisional scenario. Secondly, this study revealed differences in decision-making: English CSIs used ID information to make efficient decisions by prioritising traces with direct progression opportunities for the case and disregarding those without direct opportunities, which led to a form of tunnel vision, namely the ignorance of the involvement of a second offender. Dutch CSIs showed to be less prone to bias towards traces that produced database matches. Dutch CSIs seemed to be more focused on the relation of the trace with the crime, while English CSIs are more focused on the database match. Consequently, important information was overlooked. We question whether the emphasis on efficiency in England goes at the expense of the quality of an investigation.

В статье рассматривается парадоксальная ситуация в разделении социально-гуманитарных наук и их интеграции. Они взаимодополняют друг друга таким образом, что исключают влияние сопредельных предметов и методов на свое функционирование. Это затрудняет системное отображение общественного процесса и понимание перспектив самого обществознания. Выход из этой ситуации обнаруживается в характеристике историчности разделения труда в обществознании, в эволюции его парадигм., In the article paradoxical situation in the differentiation of social knowledge and humanities as well as of their integration is considered. They complement each other in such a manner that infl uence of adjacent subjects and methods on the functioning is excluded. It complicates system’s display of public process and understanding of prospects of the social science. The exit from this situation is found in the characteristic of historicity of a division of labor in social sciences, in evolution of its paradigms.

The terror of modernism or Scott’s 'tunnel vision' The article analyses James C. Scott’s book Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Scott’s book examines different aspects of a modern state’s activity and its methods of control over the population. Scott describes diverse failures in state planning and links them to the ideology of what he terms “high modernism”. Scott states that this ideology results in over confidence in scientific progress and omnipresent simplifications, since a modernist plan does not recognize the importance of local knowledge and tradition.Though the book clearly illustrates how the fore-mentioned centralist approach leads to failures, its methodology, however, lacks the critical analysis of the nature of governance and liberal economy. Furthermore, Scott offers no insight on the late capitalism nor legible solutions for the described issues. He seems to be unaware of constructing his own “tunnel vision” by selective case studies and building the narration on simplified oppositions. Modernistyczny terror, czyli krótko o tunnel vision Jamesa C. ScottaArtykuł jest analizą książki Jamesa Scotta, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Książka ta bada różnorodne aspekty aktywności współczesnego państwa i jego metody kontroli nad populacją. Autor opisuje rożnego typu niepowodzenia wynikające z państwowego planowania i wiąże je z ideologią nazwaną przez siebie „zaawansowanym modernizmem”. Scott twierdzi, że skutkuje ona pokładaniem nadmiernej wiary w postęp naukowy i wszechobecnymi uproszczeniami, ponieważ modernistyczny plan nie uznaje znaczenia lokalnej wiedzy i tradycji.Choć książka jasno pokazuje, jak wspomniane centralistyczne podejście kończy się porażkami, jej metodologii brakuje krytycznej analizy natury władzy i liberalnej ekonomii. Ponadto Scott pomija temat późnego kapitalizmu i jasnych rozwiązań opisywanych problemów. Wydaje się, iż poprzez sele

In order to prevent miscarriages of justice, police, prosecution, and judges must remain open to alternative scenarios in which the suspect is in fact innocent. In recent years, however, several studies have delivered results suggesting that open-mindedness is not always standard in criminal procedures. For example, Ask and Granhag (2005) found that police officers' estimation of the incriminating power of investigation findings was not affected by knowledge of an alternative suspect. The current first study replicated these findings in a mixed sample of police officers, district attorneys, and judges. In Study 2, this blindness to alternative scenarios did not emerge in a sample of university students. However, the estimation of the incriminating power of the evidence and the willingness to convict the primary suspect were predicted with the participants' confirmation proneness.

We introduce and test a behavioral model of consumer product search that extends a baseline normative model of sequential search by incorporating nonnormative influences that are local in the sense that they reflect consumers' undue sensitivity to recently encountered alternatives. We propose two types of such local behavioral influences that, at each stage of a search process, can manifest themselves both in which of the products inspected up to that point is deemed to be the most preferred one (the product comparison decision) and whether to terminate the search at that stage (the stopping decision). The first of these influences is that consumers respond excessively to the attractiveness of the currently inspected product, at the expense of all others ("focalism"). The second proposed behavioral influence is that consumers overreact to the difference in attractiveness between the current product and the one encountered just prior to it ("local contrast"). Converging evidence from two experiments, which combine to guarantee both high internal and high external validity, provides support for the proposed behavioral influences. Our findings demonstrate that consumers' product comparison and stopping decisions in sequential product search are jointly governed by normative principles and by the proposed local behavioral influences.

Tunnel vision, or just doing one thing, is not suitable with the idea of ecocentricity. For example, the quick _solution of making ethanol from corn for fuel caused more problems than it solved. The lack of awareness of the connection between the component crucial factors is a problem.