Events 2022-2023

RSVP HERE

The Behavioral Code

About the Book

Why do some laws radically change behavior whereas others are consistently ignored and routinely broken? Why do we keep relying on harsh punishment against crime even though it continues to fail?

Professors Benjamin van Rooij and Adam Fine present the first accessible analysis of behavioral jurisprudence, which will fundamentally alter how we understand the connection between law and human behavior. Drawing upon decades of research, the authors reveal the behavioral code: the root causes and hidden forces that drive human behavior and our responses to society’s laws.

About the Authors

About the Authors

Benjamin van Rooij is Faculty Director of Research and Professor of Law and Society at the Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam, where he directs the Center for Law and Behavior. He is also a Professional Researcher at UCI Law. He studies and teaches about the interaction between law and behavior. His current research focuses on individual differences in compliance, toxic corporate culture and assumptions about behavioral change. His past work looked at compliance, regulatory law enforcement and access to justice in China in a comparative perspective. He is also co-editor of Regulation & Governance, and founding convener of ComplianceNet, a global network of compliance scholars. He currently leads an ERC-funded research project about behavioral assumptions in the field of law. In addition, he collaborates with an interdisciplinary team to study compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures.

Adam D. Fine is an assistant professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. He received his doctorate, specializing in developmental psychology and quantitative methods, from the University of California, Irvine. A developmental psychologist conducting research at the intersection of psychology, law, public policy and criminology, Fine’s research broadly focuses on juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice. His current work centers on two areas: 1) how youth develop their perceptions of law enforcement, the law and the justice system, paying particular attention to developmental trends and racial-ethnic differences; and 2) how experiences with the juvenile justice system affect youth outcomes and disparities. He is the PI of the Youth Justice Lab.