PAM A. MUELLER
Psychology Department, Princeton University  Princeton, NJ 08540  847-644-2466
pamuelle@princeton.edu  http://lapa.princeton.edu/peopledetail.php?ID=667
EDUCATION
Princeton University
Ph.D., Social Psychology, expected 2015; M.A., 2012
 Dissertation: Mind Perception and Morality in the Justice System
 Program in Law and Public Affairs, Graduate Associate
Harvard Law School
J.D., cum laude, 2008
 Thesis: Legacies in an Ephemeral Art
 Harvard Law & Policy Review, Student Writing Editor
 Harvard Law School Democrats, Secretary
Loyola University Chicago
B.S., Psychology, summa cum laude, Honors Program Degree, 2002
 Thesis: The Effect of Modality on Eyewitness Memory
 Phi Beta Kappa
 Minor in French language and literature
PUBLICATIONS

Mueller, P.A., & Oppenheimer, D.M. (in press). The pen is mightier than the
keyboard: advantages of longhand over laptop note-taking. Psychological Science.
Taking notes on laptops rather than by longhand is increasingly common. Many researchers have
suggested that laptop note-taking is less effective for learning. Prior studies have primarily
focused on laptops' capacity for multitasking and distraction. The current research suggests that
even when distractions are eliminated, laptops still may be impairing learning. In three studies, we
find that students who took notes on laptops performed worse on various assessment questions
than students who took notes longhand. We show that while taking more notes can be beneficial,
laptop note-takers' tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and
reframing it in their own words is detrimental.

Chandler, J.J, Mueller, P.A., & Paolacci, G. (2013). Nonnaïveté among Amazon
Mechanical Turk workers: consequences and solutions for behavioral researchers.
Behavior Research Methods, 10.3758/s13428-013-0365-7
Crowdsourcing services – particularly Amazon Mechanical Turk – have made it easy for
behavioral scientists to recruit research participants. However, researchers have overlooked crucial
differences between crowdsourced and traditionally recruited participants that provide unique
opportunities and challenges. We show that crowdsourced workers are likely to participate across
multiple related experiments, and researchers are overzealous in the exclusion of research
participants. We describe how both of these problems can be avoided using advanced interface
features that also allow prescreening and longitudinal data collection. Using these techniques can
minimize the effects of previously ignored drawbacks and expand the scope of crowdsourcing as a
tool for psychological research.

Chandler, J.J., Paolacci, G., & Mueller, P.A. (in press). Risks and rewards of
crowdsourcing marketplaces. In Pietro Michelucci (Ed.), Handbook of Human
Computation, New York: Springer.
This chapter focuses on the strengths and limitations of crowdsourcing marketplaces, with an
emphasis on the quality of crowdsourced data. We describe general considerations and provide
specific recommendations for measuring and improving data quality, which are applicable across
crowdsourcing markets.

Shapiro, D.N., Chandler, J.J., & Mueller, P.A. (2013). Using Mechanical Turk to
study clinical populations. Clinical Psychological Science, 1(2), 213-220.
Participants with psychiatric symptoms, specific risk factors, or rare demographic characteristics
are sometimes crucial for research in the social, behavioral, and clinical sciences. No research to
date has examined the utility of crowdsourcing software for conducting research on
psychopathology. We examine the prevalence of several psychiatric disorders and related
problems, as well as the reliability and validity of participant reports on these domains, among
users of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Findings suggest that crowdsourcing software offers several
advantages for clinical research while providing insight into potential problems, such as
misrepresentation, that researchers should address when collecting data online.

Mueller, P.A., Solan, L.M., & Darley, J.M. (2012). When does knowledge become
intent?: Perceiving the minds of wrongdoers. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 9,
859-892.
In a series of experimental studies, we asked people to assign appropriate liability to individuals
who cause harm with various culpable states of mind and kinds of knowledge. The studies are
principally aimed at two related issues. First, do people actually separate the various states of mind
conceptually? How much knowledge, and what kind of knowledge, regarding something that may
go wrong (understanding risk) is sufficient to count as knowing that something will go wrong
(having knowledge legally equivalent to intent)? Second, to the extent that people distinguish
among the states of mind that help define normative behavior, how much do those distinctions
contribute to people’s judgments of civil liability? Findings suggest that people are able to make
explicit distinctions about the states of mind of others that more or less correspond to legally
relevant categories. However, when asked to assign consequences, their “hot” moral judgments
play a larger role than do their “cold” cognitive categorizations.

Diamond, S.S. & Mueller, P.A. (2010). Empirical legal scholarship in law reviews.
Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 6, 581-599.
Despite persistent calls for more empirical legal scholarship, only recently have scholars provided
evidence that empirical legal scholarship has indeed entered the mainstream of the legal academy.
We analyzed the content of 60 law review volumes published in the years 1998 and 2008, finding
that by 2008 nearly half of law review articles included some empirical content. Production of
original empirical research, however, is less common. The highest-ranked law reviews published
more original empirical articles and included more complex research designs. Analyzing the
benefits and costs of publishing in law reviews, we predict that law reviews will see more original
empirical scholarship in the future, despite the increased availability of peer-reviewed publication
outlets.

Diamond, S.S., & Mueller, P. (2008). Jury decisions versus judges' decisions. In B.
Cutler (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology and law. (pp. 406-409). Thousand Oaks,
CA: SAGE Publications.
In American trials, the verdict is reached by either a judge or a jury, raising questions as to how
these two fact finders reach their decisions and whether their decisions systematically differ. Most
research has focused on the jury, though some key studies have compared the decisions of judges
and juries. The available archival studies, case-specific judicial surveys, and experimental research
reveal substantial similarities and a few differences.
WORK UNDER REVIEW AND WORKING PAPERS

Mueller, P.A., & Fiske, S.T. Mind perception and morality in the justice system.
One common view is that the role of morality in the justice system is to differentiate punishment
from compensation, or more generally, criminal consequences from civil consequences. We find
that morality plays a more nuanced role in laypeople’s legal judgments. The moral character of
the harmdoer influences blame and responsibility judgments in criminal cases, while the moral
character of the victim influences blame and responsibility judgments in civil cases. These
differences in blame are partially accounted for by differences in perceived agency of harmdoers
and victims.

Mueller, P.A. Immorality and inchoate crimes.
The majority standard for attempt crimes – “substantial step” – does not comport with laypeople’s
intuitions about criminalization or immoral behavior. This empirical law review piece argues for
the implementation of the minority “dangerous proximity” standard, based on original research
that 1) replicates Robinson & Darley’s finding about lay intuitions, 2) shows that the substantial
step standard is applied less consistently than the minority “dangerous proximity” standard,
leading to capricious and unjust outcomes, and 3) demonstrates that the harmdoer’s moral
character is more likely to be inappropriately considered when the substantial step standard is
applied.

Mueller, P.A., Fiske, S.T., Solan, L.M., & Darley, J.M. Intentionality and
institutional choice.
We investigate laypeople’s intuitions about the appropriateness of criminal and civil consequences
for harms committed with different levels of mens rea, in order to determine whether
criminalizing unintentional behavior comports with laypeople’s beliefs about what is just. In three
studies, we find that civil consequences are seen as more just than criminal consequences for all
harms other than those committed truly intentionally. mens rea. We then explore whether these lay
beliefs about the appropriate relationship between criminal penalties and intentional harms lead
people to perceive harm-doers who face criminal consequences as having acted more intentionally
than those who face civil consequences. We find that people do perceive harm-doers facing
criminal charges to have acted more intentionally, though this effect is qualified by their initial
perception of the justness of the consequence.

Mueller, P.A., & Pronin, E. Self-other asymmetries in blind evaluation.
Blind evaluation (e.g. blind grading, auditions, etc.) removes the potential for bias in many
situations, but it also may hide useful information. In the legal context, for instance, some
information may be both probative and prejudicial. We find that people are most likely to think
that blind evaluation will improve the judgments of individuals making other kinds of decisions.
They are somewhat less likely to think that it will improve decisions for other people making the
same decision that they are, and are least likely to think that it will improve their own decision.
The difference in their perception of the utility of blind evaluation for themselves versus others
making their same decision is driven by the bias blind spot; that is, they believe that blind
evaluation will reduce bias more for others than for themselves. On the other hand, the difference
in the perception of the effectiveness of blind evaluation for others making the same decision as
they are and those making a different decision is driven by the fact that they believe blind
evaluation is hiding useful information from their group, but not from the other group.

Mueller, P.A., & Pronin, E. The bias blind spot in legal decision making.
Individuals are more likely to see the existence and operation of both cognitive and motivational
biases in others than in themselves. This tendency has ramifications for decisions made
throughout the justice system. This article traces cases through the legal system, and explores
situations in which the bias blind spot is likely to be an important consideration. We then suggest
specific measures that can be taken to counteract the bias blind spot in these situations, beyond
simply making people aware of their biases.

Mueller, P.A. Legacies in an ephemeral art.
Choreography is one of the most ephemeral arts. As such, choreography has faced significant
challenges when issues of intellectual property have arisen. Because of these challenges, the
dance community has, until recently, depended largely on internal good will and self-policing for
their dispute resolution. Drawing on both psychology and law, I argue that it is important for
choreographers to work within the legal system, and provide suggestions for how to protect these
intensely personal artistic legacies.
SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AND INVITED TALKS
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Social Psychology and Law Pre-Conference, SPSP Annual Meeting, Austin, 2014
Mind Perception and Morality in the Justice System
Association for Consumer Research Conference; Chicago, 2013
Incentivizing Mechanical Turk Workers’ Attention

ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, Crowdsourcing and Online Behavioral
Experiments Workshop; University of Pennsylvania, 2013
Non-Naïveté Among Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers

Four College Conference; Princeton University, 2013
The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Laptop and Longhand Note-Taking

Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Meeting and Social
Psychology and Law Pre-Conference; New Orleans, 2013 (poster presentation)
Is Strict Liability Too Strict?: Lay Intuitions about Intentionality and Institutional
Choice

Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Meeting; San Diego, 2012
(symposium speaker and co-chair)
Advanced Uses of Mechanical Turk Crowdsourcing in Psychological Research

Conference on Empirical Legal Studies; Northwestern University, 2011
When Does Knowledge Become Intent?: Perceiving the Minds of Wrongdoers

Philosophy, Linguistics, and Law Series; Brooklyn Law School
When Does Knowledge Become Intent?

MERG Experimental Philosophy Conference; New York University
From Risk to Knowledge, from Knowledge to Intent: How People Perceive the
Minds of Wrongdoers
AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS
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Fellowship of Woodrow Wilson Scholars, 2013 – present (awarded to selected
doctoral students engaged in interdisciplinary research relevant to public policy)
Society for Personality and Social Psychology Graduate Student Travel Award, 2012.
Post-Graduate Research Fellowship, Harvard Law School, 2008 – 2011.
Eugene B. Zechmeister Prize (awarded to each year’s outstanding psychology
scholar), Loyola University Chicago, 2002.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Assistant in Instruction/Lab Instructor
Psychology 101, Princeton University (Fall 2011 – Prof. Daniel Oppenheimer)
Psychology 101, Princeton University (Fall 2012 – Prof. Yarrow Dunham)
Psychology 101, Princeton University (Spring 2013 – Prof. Nicholas Turk-Browne)
LEGAL EXPERIENCE
Foley and Lardner, LLP (Chicago and Los Angeles, 2008-2009)
Attorney – Copyright, Trademark, and Advertising Department

Researched, wrote, and filed responses to trademark office actions

Drafted and filed complaints, responses and various motions for trademark and
copyright infringement cases
Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart, Oliver, and Hedges, LLP (Summer 2007)
Summer Associate Attorney
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Researched and wrote memoranda on trademark, antitrust, and securities issues;
drafted motion to exclude
Drafted memorandum and wrote deposition questions on key issue in a significant
trademark case
Lar Lubovitch Dance Company (Summer 2006)
Summer Associate – Copyright and Licensing

Registered copyrights for choreography created under different copyright statutes
over a 40-year period
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Investigated issues related to past licensing of choreography, as well as music
licensing for dance performance videos
OTHER EMPLOYMENT
Northwestern University School of Law (2009-2010)
Research Associate – Professors Kenworthey Bilz, Shari Diamond, & Janice Nadler
Congressman Jerry Kleczka, D-WI (2004-2005)
Communications Director; Appropriations Aide
Dean for America, Burlington, VT/Falls Church, VA (2003-2004)
Press Secretary, State of Virginia
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
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Society for Empirical Legal Studies, Association for Psychological Science, Society
for Personality and Social Psychology, American Psychology-Law Society
Admitted to the Illinois Bar (2008)