Margaret Bull Kovera
American social psychologist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Margaret Bull Kovera is an American social psychologist, legal consultant, and expert on eyewitness identification and legal decision-making.[1] She is often cited as an expert in news articles about jury selection in high-profile criminal cases.[2][3][4] Kovera is a Presidential Scholar and Professor of Psychology and at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the CUNY Graduate Center,[5] where she directs the Legal Decision Making and Witness Behavior laboratory.[6]
Margaret Bull Kovera | |
|---|---|
| Occupations | Presidential Scholar and Professor of Psychology |
| Known for | Eyewitness identification and legal decision making |
| Academic background | |
| Education | University of Minnesota; Northwestern University |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Psychology and Law |
| Institutions | John Jay College of Criminal Justice; CUNY Graduate Center |
| Website | https://www.margaretkovera.com/ |
Kovera is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association.[7] She previously served as a member of the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) subcommittee to modernize guidelines for eyewitness identification procedures.[8]
Kovera received the AP-LS Distinguished Contributions to Psychology and Law Award in 2025.[9] Other professional honors include the Distinguished Service to the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) Award (2014),[10] the AP-LS Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring in the Field of Psychology and Law Award (2004),[11] and the AP-LS Saleem Shah Early Career Award (2000).[12]
Education
Kovera received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology (with departmental honors) from Northwestern University (1984-1988) and her Doctorate in Social Psychology from the University of Minnesota (1988-1994).[5] As a graduate student working with Eugene Borgida, Kovera focused mainly on child's capabilities as witnesses in child sexual abuse trials.[13][14]
Kovera taught at Florida International University (1995-2004) before joining the faculty of John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) in 2004.[5] Kovera's research has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation.[15][16]
Research
Kovera's research examines the assumptions the legal system makes about the behavior of "legal actors", such as attorneys, police officers, jurors, judges, and witnesses.[17] She has conducted work on varied topics in the field of psychology and law including expert witnesses, eyewitness identification, and jury selection.[18] As examples, her team has explored factors that affect judges’ abilities to distinguish between legitimate and junk science, and the effectiveness of procedural safeguards against junk science.[19] Other work investigated adversarial allegiance––expert witnesses' propensity to assess the evidence in a way which benefits the party that hired them––and potential strategies for mitigating this bias.[20]
Kovera and her collaborators have studied eyewitness identification procedures and the advantages of using double-blind lineups, where the lineup administrator is blind to the identification of the suspect.[21][22] In other work, her team has examined how social psychological processes may affect jury verdicts. Such psychological processes include attitudes and beliefs, confirmation bias,[23] and implicit racial bias.[24]
Books
- Cutler, B. L., & Kovera, M. B. (2010). Evaluating eyewitness identification. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537268-7
- Bottoms, B. L., Kovera, M. B., & McAuliff, B. D. (Eds.) (2002). Children, social science, and the law. Cambridge University Press.
- Kovera, M. B. (Ed). (2017). The psychology of juries. American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1-4338-2704-4
- Kovera, M. B. & Cutler, B. L. (2013). Jury selection. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-532301-6
Representative publications
- Kovera, M. B. (2002). The effects of general pretrial publicity on juror decisions: An examination of moderators and mediating mechanisms. Law and Human Behavior, 26(1), 43-72.
- Kovera, M. B. (2019). Racial disparities in the criminal justice system: Prevalence, causes, and a search for solutions. Journal of Social Issues, 75(4), 1139-1164.
- Kovera, M. B. (2024). The role of suspect development practices in eyewitness identification accuracy and racial disparities in wrongful conviction. Social Issues and Policy Review, 18(1), 125-147.
- Kovera, M. B., & McAuliff, B. D. (2000). The effects of peer review and evidence quality on judge evaluations of psychological science: Are judges effective gatekeepers? Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(4), 574-586.
- Kovera, M. B., Gresham, A. W., Borgida, E., Gray, E., & Regan, P. C. (1997). Does expert psychological testimony inform or influence juror decision making? A social cognitive analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(1), 178-191.