Criteria for Choice: A Study of Individual Behavior in the Criminal Justice System

This article begins with a definition of politics as a problem-solving process. Thus, to understand politics we need to understand how people solve problems. This research focuses on the ways individuals perceive, evaluate, and use a limited amount of informa tion in solving problems in a criminal justice context. An experiment was used to control information and assess performance levels. In the first wave of the experiment Ss read “criminal court transcripts” from an assault and battery case, in which characteristics of the information source were varied. In the second treatment Ss read excerpts of the Miranda case. The data analysis presented here examines the effects of information source, individual level of cognitive complexity, and decision making rules or logics on verdicts.