ABSTRACT
This chapter examines social psychological and socio-legal research with a bearing on meta-responsibility. Such research has typically examined: how mock jurors react to information concerning culpability for incapacity and how such notions might be operationalized within the criminal law. N. J. Finkel's investigations of culpability judgments stem from the socio-legal research of H. Fingarette, particularly the 'Disability of Mind' (DOM) doctrine. DOM refers to a mental incapacity, for which there may be culpability. If the DOM doctrine's consideration of meta-responsibility is flawed, another method might be through the doctrine of transferred intent that applies when a defendant has culpability with regard to a 'bad' event through attempting to bring about a different 'bad' event. Meta-responsibility may be an often-used construct in legal decision-making and other social situations more generally. Finkel and S. F. Handel show the importance of a construct related to meta-responsibility in accounting for the variance in juror decisions.
