This project focuses on the misalignment between social scientific empirical research and the behavioral function of law in the Netherlands. The relationship between law and social science is complex, and widely discussed in literature by both disciplines. Social scientific empirical research can be of great value for law, especially for the behavioral function of law. Here, law tries to shape human behavior. Social science can provide law with insights about how to do so effectively. However, we see that in practice, legal practitioners do not always use the insights from social science in its behavioral function, but rather relies on assumptions people have about human behavior. This project will study to what extent these behavioral assumptions of legal practitioners are in line with social scientific empirical research: whether there is a misalignment between social scientific empirical research and the ex-ante function of law. Furthermore, it will study why this misalignment exists. Last, it will use this data to provide lessons for both law and social science.

First, it will study the behavioral assumptions of legal practitioners tasked to shape (human) behavior, respectively prosecutors, regulators, and in-house counsels and to what extent these assumptions are aligned with social scientific empirical research. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with the legal practitioners to study their behavioral assumptions. Each interview consists of a set of questions about their behavioral goals, the mechanisms they know and their assumptions about the mechanisms. This will be compared with the overview created in Project 1 to study to what extent there is a misalignment between their assumptions and social scientific research. Furthermore, quantitative surveys will be conducted to study the behavioral assumptions of legal practitioners. This survey consists of multiple-choice questions for each of the core behavioral mechanisms and interventions based on the memos created by project 1). The survey tests whether the ideas of legal practitioners are in line with social scientific empirical research.

The same interviews and surveys will be conducted in three jurisdictions: The Netherlands (this project), the United States (Megan), and China (Shuyu). The results from the interviews and surveys in all three jurisdictions will be compared to analyse whether the jurisdictions differ in their misalignment.

Second, it will study why there is a misalignment between social scientific empirical research and the behavioral function of law. This will be done using the same interviews and surveys as described, but focusing on possible explanations for the misalignment. Legal practitioners will be asked whether they received training in empirical research, to what extent the research is available for them, and what they know about social scientific empirical research.

Last, this project aims to provide more insights in the relationship between the behavioral function of law and social scientific research. It aims to provide lessons for both law and science about the relationship between law and social science.