Professor Dan Simon specializes in the field of Law & Psychology. He teaches Criminal Law, as well as various courses in the intersection of law and psychology. He also teaches a course on law and psychology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Professor Simon is the author of In Doubt: The Psychology of the Criminal Justice Process (Harvard University Press, 2012).  His publications in law reviews include "The Limited Diagnosticity of Criminal Trials" (Vanderbilt Law Review, 2011); "A Third View of the Black Box: Cognitive Coherence in Legal Decision Making" (The University of Chicago Law Review, 2004), and "A Psychological Model of Judicial Decision Making" (Rutgers Law Journal, 1988). He has also published a number of articles in experimental psychological journals, including "The Construction of Preferences by Constraint Satisfaction" (Psychological Science, 2004; with co-authors), "The Redux of cognitive consistency theories: Evidence judgments by constraint satisfaction" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2004; with co-authors), and Bidirectional Reasoning in Decision Making by Constraint Satisfaction (Journal of Experimental Psychology—General, 1999, with Keith J. Holyoak).

Professor Simon has been a visiting professor at Yale Law School and Harvard Law School. He earned an S.J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and an LL.B. from Tel Aviv University. He worked as an attorney for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel as human rights lawyer on the West Bank.  Before joining the USC Gould School of Law in 1999, Professor Simon was a member of the faculty of the University of Haifa Law School. He serves as an ad hoc referee for academic presses, peer reviewed journals in experimental psychology, and the National Science Foundation.

Books and Book Chapters

• In Doubt:  The Psychology of the Criminal Justice Process.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2012.  - (www)
• "Parallel Constraint Satisfaction as a Mechanism for Cognitive Consistency," (with Stephen J. Read) in Cognitive Consistency: A Fundamental Principle in Social Cognition (B. Gawronsky & F. Strack, eds.), pp. 66-86 (Guilford Press, 2012). 
• "In Praise of Pedantic Eclecticism: Pitfalls and Opportunities in the Psychology of Judging," in The Psychology of Judicial Decision Making (with David E. Klein and Gregory Mitchell, eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2010).  - (SSRN)

Articles

• "More Problems with Criminal Trials:  the Limited Effectiveness of Trial Mechanisms," 75 Law & Contemporary Problems 167 (2012).  - (SSRN)
• "Lay Judgments of Judicial Decision-Making," (with Nicholas Scurich) 8 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 709-727 (2011).  - (SSRN)
• "The Limited Diagnosticity of Criminal Trials," 64 Vanderbilt Law Review 143 (2011).  - (SSRN) - (SSRN)
• "The Transience of Constructed Preferences," (with Daniel C. Krawczyk, Airom Bleicher, & Keith J. Holyoak) 21 Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 1 (2008).  - (SSRN)
• "A Third View of the Black Box: Cognitive Coherence in Legal Decision Making," 71 University of Chicago Law Review, 511 (2004).  - (SSRN) - (SSRN)
• "The Redux of Cognitive Consistency Theories: Evidence Judgments by Constraint Satisfaction," (with Chadwick J. Snow, & Stephen J. Read) 86 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 814 (2004).  - (SSRN)
• "Construction of Preferences by Constraint Satisfaction," (with Daniel C. Krawczyk, & Keith J. Holyoak) 15Psychological Science 331 (2004), reprinted in The Construction of Preference, S. Lichtenstein and P. Slovic eds., (Cambridge University Press, 2007).  - (SSRN)
• "Effects of Individual Expertise and Task Importance on Pre-decision Reevaluation of Alternatives," (with Aaron L. Brownstein & Stephen J. Read) 30 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 819 (2004). 
• "Structural Dynamics of Cognition: From Consistency Theories to Constraint Satisfaction," (with Keith J. Holyoak) 6 Personality and Social Psychology Review 283 (2002).  - (SSRN)
•  "Freedom and Constraint in Adjudication: A Look Through the Lens of Cognitive Psychology," 67 Brooklyn Law Review 1097 (2002).  - (Hein)
• "The Emergence of Coherence Over the Course of Decision Making," (with Lien B. Pham, Quang A. Le, & Keith J. Holyoak) 27 Journal of Experimental Psychology—Learning, Memory & Cognition 1250 (2001).  - (PDF)
• "The Double-Consciousness of Judging: The Problematic Legacy of Cardozo," 79 Oregon Law Review 1033 (2000). - (Hein)
• "Bidirectional Reasoning in Decision Making by Constraint Satisfaction," (with Keith J. Holyoak) 128 Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 3 (1999).  - (PDF)
• "A Psychological Model of Judicial Decision Making,” 30 Rutgers Law Journal 1 (1998).  - (Hein)
• "The Demolition of Homes in the Israeli Occupied Territories, 19 Yale Journal of International Law 1 (1994).  - (Hein)

Works in Progress

• "Judicial Overstatement," invited paper for Symposium: The Supreme Court and the Public, Chicago-Kent Law Review (with Nicholas Scurich) (in press).
• "Lay Judgments of Judicial Decisions: The Ineffectiveness of Neutral Experts" (with Nicholas Scurich) (under review).
• "Adjudication and Adversarial Justice," invited chapter, to be published in: Examining Wrongful Convictions: Stepping Back, Moving Forward (Allison Redlich, Jim Acker, Robert Norris, & Catherine Bonventre eds.) (Carolina Academic Press).
• "Ecological Validity of Jury Decision Making Research," invited chapter for: The Future of Jury Decision Making (Margaret Bull Kovera, ed.).
• "The Coherence Effect: Blending Emotion and Cognition" (with Douglas Stenstrom & Stephen J. Read) (draft available).
• "Adversarial Investigations" (with Douglas Stenstrom & Stephen J. Read) (draft available).
• "Common Sense in Court: Testing Jurors’ Knowledge and Beliefs" (with Douglas Stenstrom & Stephen J. Read) (in progress; data collected).

Other Works

• Coherence in Perceptions of a Romantic Relationship (with Aaron L. Brownstein and Stephen J. Read) (published in The Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2004).
• Constraint Satisfaction Processes in Social Reasoning (with Stephen J. Read and Chadwick J. Snow) (published in The Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2003).
• "Israel On the Verge of a Bill of Rights," 9 Israel Studies Bulletin 9 (1993).

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