Borgida has questioned the extent to which Wells and Harvey's data indicate that people do not ignore consensus information when making predictions and attributions. This article takes issue with Borgida's summary of parts of our work and with several of his arguments on grounds of precision and completeness. It is also noted that Kahneman and Tversky's analyses of data in their lawyer-engineer...

This research shows that the motivation to posses a desired characteristic (or to avoid an undesired one) results in self-perceptions that guide people's use of base rate in the Lawyer-Engineer problem (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973). In four studies, participants induced to believe (or recall, Exp. 2) that a rational cognitive style is success-conducive (or an intuitive cognitive style failure-cond...

The duty to obtain consent from a litigant before beginning a forensic evaluation has fallen to the forensic psychologist. Guidelines, ethical standards, and commentators have made this assumed duty mandatory. Unfortunately, psychologists are not able to provide accurate and detailed legal information concerning the forensic evaluation. Only a person trained in the law would be qualified, and t...