High-Tech Dispute Resolution: Lessons from Psychology for a Post-Covid-19 Era

Covid-19 fostered a remote technology boom in the world of dispute resolution. Pre-pandemic, adoption of technical innovation in dispute resolution was slow moving. Some attorneys, courts, arbitrators, mediators and others did use technology, including telephone, e-mail, text, or videoconferences, or more ambitious online dispute resolution (ODR). But, to the chagrin of technology advocates, many conducted most dispute resolution largely in-person. The pandemic effectively put the emerging technological efforts on steroids. Even the most technologically challenged quickly began to replace in-person dispute resolution with videoconferencing, texting, and other technology. Courts throughout the world canceled all or most in-person trials, hearings, conferences, and appeals and began to experiment with using technologically-assisted alternatives. The U.S. Supreme Court held oral arguments using telephone conference calls. Attorneys, mediators, and arbitrators relied far more heavily on phone, e-mail, text, and video. Some courts expanded programs to help disputants obtain information and even resolve their disputes online. “Thanks” to the pandemic, the traditionally slow-moving and technology-resistant legal community suddenly embraced many kinds of technology with both arms and more. This move to technology-mediated dispute resolution was met with greater enthusiasm than many might have anticipated, leading to predictions that we may never return to the world of extensive reliance on in-person dispute resolution. As the pandemic endured, lawyers, neutrals, and court administrators found that practices adopted out of desperation could be worth preserving post-pandemic. Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack, in describing “temporary” pandemic adjustments, noted: “I don’t think that things will ever return to the way they were, and I think that is a good thing.” Even many who were previously hesitant about or relatively unaware of the possible uses of technology saw the potential for clear benefits. Some judges, mediators, arbitrators, and court administrators observed that the online versions of litigation, mediation, and arbitration could be as good or even better than the in-person versions. Some began to consider new ways to combine processes or to use them differently. Tech advocates saw this as one silver lining of the pandemic, noting that Covid-19 achieved a result that twenty years of tech advocacy could not. As in-person interactions once again become possible, disputants, lawyers, courts, and neutrals will need to decide whether and under what circumstances to conduct interviews, depositions, court proceedings, negotiations, mediations, or arbitrations in-person, by phone, using videoconferencing, or in writing of some form. While many hail the potential benefits of using technology, others fear the loss of the human side of dispute resolution, expressing significant skepticism that technology can adequately replace the close contact, credibility assessment, rapport, and interpersonal connection they believe are critically important aspects of dispute resolution. Some tout the possibilities for using technology to facilitate access to justice, but others worry about the ways that technology might impede such access. Psychological science provides a useful lens through which to consider these essential issues. Using different means of communication can influence how participants experience the interaction and these experiential differences have important implications for dispute resolution. These implications offer valuable lessons for legal actors choosing which modes of communication to use and determining how to communicate well within a particular medium. While it is natural to seek simple answers, the psychological research we explore is nuanced, revealing that no single mode of communication is “best” in all circumstances. In lieu of a simple solution we provide a multi-dimensional analysis that will help guide decision makers in making these critical determinations. Understanding the science will help participants maximize the benefits and minimize the drawbacks of different communication media, enabling them to make informed choices among media, design the chosen media to fit their goals, and adjust their advocacy, judging, negotiation, and other activities to the chosen medium. In Section II, we draw on psychology to analyze four key characteristics of communication media: (1) the channels that they provide for communication, (2) the degree to which they facilitate synchronous or asynchronous communication; (3) the extent to which they provide transparency or privacy; and (4) their formality, familiarity, and accessibility. In Section III, we explore how these characteristics affect participants in dispute resolution. We focus on the impacts of alternative modes of communication in ten areas that are particularly relevant to dispute resolution: (1) focus and fatigue; (2) rapport; (3) emotion; (4) the exchange of information; (5) participant behavior; (6) credibility determinations; (7) persuasion; (8) judgment and decision making; (9) procedural justice; and (10) public views of justice. In Section IV, we explore how decision makers might incorporate the insights of psychology into their technological choices. We identify three important variables for decision makers to consider: the goals the decision maker has for the process; the characteristics of the disputants; and the nature of the dispute or task. We explain why these variables are critically important and provide examples of how decision makers can draw on psychology to best fulfill their goals in designing and using technology for dispute resolution. In Section V, we briefly conclude and point to several areas in which additional research would be particularly useful

Instructing jurors on detecting deception: is the jury still out?

This thesis established the importance of understanding deception in courtrooms, demonstrating that expert evidence can achieve immediate and long-term benefits by correcting jurors’ biases and misconceptions around flawed stereotypes of deception. Improvements found indicate that psychological evidence can protect jurors from relying on misplaced common sense when assessing witness credibility

Paradigm Shift in Game Theory : Sociological Re-Conceptualization of Human Agency, Social Structure, and Agents’ Cognitive-Normative Frameworks and Action Determination Modalities

This article aims to present some of the initial work of developing a social science grounded game theory—as a clear alternative to classical game theory. Two distinct independent initiatives in Sociology are presented: One, a systems approach, social systems game theory (SGT), and the other, Erving Goffman’s interactionist approach (IGT). These approaches are presented and contrasted with classical theory. They focus on the social rules, norms, roles, role relationships, and institutional arrangements, which structure and regulate human behavior. While strategic judgment and instrumental rationality play an important part in the sociological approaches, they are not a universal or dominant modality of social action determination. Rule following is considered, generally speaking, more characteristic and more general. Sociological approaches, such as those outlined in this article provide a language and conceptual tools to more adequately and effectively than the classical theory describe, model, and analyze the diversity and complexity of human interaction conditions and processes: (1) complex cognitive rule based models of the interaction situation with which actors understand and analyze their situations; (2) value complex(es) with which actors operate, often with multiple values and norms applying in interaction situations; (3) action repertoires (rule complexes) with simple and complex action alternatives—plans, programs, established (sometimes highly elaborated) algorithms, and rituals; (4) a rule complex of action determination modalities for actors to generate and/or select actions in game situations; three action modalities are considered here; each modality consists of one or more procedures or algorithms for action determination: (I) following or implementing a rule or rule complex, norm, role, ritual, or social relation; (II) selecting or choosing among given or institutionalized alternatives according to a rule or principle; and (III) constructing or adopting one or more alternatives according to a value, guideline, or set of criteria. Such determinations are often carried out collectively. The paper identifies and illustrates in a concluding table several of the key differences between classical theory and the sociological approaches on a number of dimensions relating to human agency; social structure, norms, institutions, and cultural forms; patterns of game interaction and outcomes, the conditions of cooperation and conflict, game restructuring and transformation, and empirical relevance. Sociologically based game theory, such as the contributions outlined in this article suggest a language and conceptual tools to more adequately and effectively than the classical theory describe, model, and analyze the diversity, complexity, and dynamics of human interaction conditions and processes and, therefore, promises greater empirical relevance and scientific power. An Appendix provides an elaboration of SGT, concluding that one of SGT’s major contributions is the rule based conceptualization of games as socially embedded with agents in social roles and role relationships and subject to cognitive-normative and agential regulation. SGT rules and rule complexes are based on contemporary developments relating to granular computing and Artificial Intelligence in general.Peer reviewe

The effects of technology on interpersonal fraud

Fraud has expanded in frequency as e-commerce has become a dominant part of business strategy and found widespread use. Previous research in the Information Systems domain has focused on how the adoption of technology influences behavioral decisions, and previous research in the accounting domain has typically explored why people choose to commit fraud. However, a holistic model of how technology influences a person\u27s decision to commit a criminal act, such as fraud, is underrepresented. This manuscript explores how the characteristics of the technologies being used to facilitate e-commerce transactions affect the complex cognitive and social processes that result in fraud. The fraud triangle is a useful and widely supported representation of the elements necessary for a perpetrator to engage in fraud: a perceived pressure that motivates action, a perceived opportunity to successfully deceive another individual, and the ability to rationalize an act of fraud. By combining extant research in the fields of accounting and information systems, this manuscript incorporates the fraud triangle into a behavioral model that can be used to measure how the capabilities of the technologies being used to facilitate online transactions influence a person\u27s decision-making processes and, ultimately, their choices related to fraudulent behaviors

Foundations of Human-Aware Planning -- A Tale of Three Models

abstract: A critical challenge in the design of AI systems that operate with humans in the loop is to be able to model the intentions and capabilities of the humans, as well as their beliefs and expectations of the AI system itself. This allows the AI system to be "human- aware" -- i.e. the human task model enables it to envisage desired roles of the human in joint action, while the human mental model allows it to anticipate how its own actions are perceived from the point of view of the human. In my research, I explore how these concepts of human-awareness manifest themselves in the scope of planning or sequential decision making with humans in the loop. To this end, I will show (1) how the AI agent can leverage the human task model to generate symbiotic behavior; and (2) how the introduction of the human mental model in the deliberative process of the AI agent allows it to generate explanations for a plan or resort to explicable plans when explanations are not desired. The latter is in addition to traditional notions of human-aware planning which typically use the human task model alone and thus enables a new suite of capabilities of a human-aware AI agent. Finally, I will explore how the AI agent can leverage emerging mixed-reality interfaces to realize effective channels of communication with the human in the loop.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201

The Effect of Channels of Communication on Accuracy in Detecting Deception in High-Stakes situations

Much of the past research into deception detection has utilised low-stakes lies as stimulus, with globally poor results in accuracy levels. The present research used real-life recordings of high-stakes lies to investigate a between-subjects model of four different channels of communication: Audiovisual; Visual Only; Audio Only; Transcript Only. The dependent variable was the accuracy score obtained in each channel of communication in detecting deception. Considering available research results, it was hypothesised that the Audio Only group would score significantly higher than the Visual Only group, the Audiovisual group would score significantly higher than the Transcript Only group, and that the Transcript Only group would score significantly higher than participants in the Visual Only group. The lack of research into the channel of communication of Transcript Only provided further rationale for the present study. Due to the high-stakes nature of stimuli materials it was hypothesised that all participants would score higher than chance. Each participant group (N=20) observed 20 clips of people making public pleas for information about a missing or murdered relative. Half of the clips included people involved in the crime (attempting to deceive the public) and the other half were innocent (truthful, and not attempting to deceive the public). Scores ranged between 50.8% accuracy (audio visual) and 56.5% accuracy (visual only). There was no statistically significant difference between mean scores, F(3,76)=.30, p=.826, η²=.01. T-tests were conducted to test accuracy levels within each group. Accuracy levels were not significantly above chance. Suggestions for further research are discussed