Psycholegal study of property law

Jeremy A. Blumenthal (Associate Professor of Law, Syracuse Univ. Law School) has posted on SSRN his article entitled ‘To Be Human’: A Psychological Perspective on Property Law, 83 Tulane L. Rev. (2009).

The psycholegal study of property law, theory, and doctrine is a new and developing topic area. As one Article in a Special Issue of the Tulane Law Review, this paper serves as a broad introduction and overview to the field. Aimed at both legal academics and social scientists, a primary goal is to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration between the fields in order to promote additional empirical research in the area. Thus, I first identify the important theoretical connections between psycholegal research and property law, theory, and policy. Next, I review what work has been conducted, as well as some contemporary research (including the other Articles in the Issue). Finally, I indicate several under-explored topic areas available to psycholegal scholars, and sketch what a research program taking a psychological perspective on property law might look like in a number of areas. I demonstrate the close relationship between empirical psychological findings and property law and theory, and discuss the potential for more.