Honest Mistake Research Articles

Motivated Errors

Myriad environments allow for the possibility of confusion. Agents may appeal to such confusion—or the possibility of making an honest mistake—to justify their behavior. In three sets of experiments involving thousands of subjects, we document evidence of such motivated errors. We document this evidence in a simple environment in which the scope for errors is small and in more complex environments in which subjects display correlation neglect and an anchoring bias. (JEL C91, D12, D64, D81, D83, D91)

Психологические аспекты криминалистического изучения личности свидетеля

The need to study the identity of a witness in the course of crime investigation is triggered by the importance of their testimony in a criminal case both for the prosecution and for the defense. The author refers to opinions of Russian and foreign scientists about problems and areas of study of personal characteristics of witnesses. The paper notes their impact on making knowingly false testimony and testimony based on an honest mistake. The publication highlights the importance of studying the identity of a witness in the contemporary conditions with the use of criminalistic and psychological methods.

DUTIES AND AUTHORITY OF A NOTARY IN PRODUCING LAND DEEDS

Case Study 179/PDT.G/2022/PN.PLG is used to examine the roles and responsibilities of notaries in the creation of land deeds. Two primary lines of inquiry emerge from this statement of need for more study: (1) what are the responsibilities and powers of a notary in producing land deeds, and (2) what is the notary's responsibility for the land deeds he makes? A normative judicial methodology was used for this study. The result of this research is a notary's power to create land deeds is limited by Article 15 of the Law on the Position of Notaries. In compliance with legal mandates like the Government Regulation on PPAT, the Land Deed Making Officer (PPAT) is also empowered to create land deeds. A notary's ability to create certain property deeds, such as a Sale and Purchase Agreement Deed, is constrained by the PPAT's duties. The notary's obligation for land deeds depends on the cause of the inaccuracy. If the notary's mistake causes financial harm, the victim may file a civil lawsuit against the official. The UUJN also suggests possible criminal and administrative consequences, such as temporary termination. If the notary has followed all applicable laws and regulations and an honest mistake has occurred, the notary is immune from liability. This study's findings give a summary of the complexities involved in notaries' roles in drafting property deeds and fulfilling their obligations under relevant laws.

An honest mistake?

Our panel discuss how managers should treat a situation where a member of staff is on unallocated leave due to a ‘mistake’ with their holiday booking. By Gabriella Jozwiak

Legal error as a concept of general theoretical jurisprudence

Introduction. After presenting error as a social phenomenon, the article focuses on legal error, which is understood as a legally significant action (or inaction) in a state of good faith delusion, the result of which does not correspond to its purpose(s), can or should be corrected, and does not or does not entail legal liability. The author formulates the concept of a legal error, identifies its main features, and also creates a classification of its main types (by legal qualification). The purpose of the article is primarily to characterize legal error from the perspective of general theoretical jurisprudence, to define it as a generic legal concept with justification of its terminological form and internal logic. Summary of the main research results. "Mistake" is a well-established social phenomenon. One of its types is a legal error. According to its main features (objective and subjective), it is a legally significant (lawful, unlawful) behavior in the form of action or inaction; it is behavior in a state of good faith delusion; it is behavior whose result does not correspond to its purpose(s); its negative (undesirable) result can or should be corrected; it is behavior that does not or does not entail legal liability. The distinction between the types of legal error ("by legal qualification") indicates that it is: lawful behavior (permissible); objectively unlawful act ("innocent act"); error ("positive", "negative" by consequences) in the unlawfulness of an act; error as a purposeful result of an offense (deception). Conclusions. According to the legal qualification, a legal error is a dualistic phenomenon, it is a lawful or unlawful action (inaction). The unconsciousness of an error in thinking is traditionally reflected in the term "bona fide delusion" (awareness of an error means the absence of a "state of delusion"). According to the source of the delusion, it is necessary to distinguish between action (inaction) in a state of delusion as a result of a mistake and action (inaction) in a state of delusion as a result of deception. The teleological inadequacy ("target irrelevance") of the result of behavior is an external expression of the error of a specific targeted action (inaction) of a person as a subject of goal setting. A legal error as an objectively unlawful act (an innocent act which makes intent as a form of guilt impossible) is a law implementation error which draws attention to the need to distinguish between an "honest mistake" and an "intentional mistake" (having the features of "deception", "falsification") as opposite phenomena. The classification of types of legal error is not limited to its understanding as an objectively unlawful act, to its typology by types of legal activity. This classification generally applies to both lawful and unlawful behavior of legal entities.

La Bocce Vita

La Bocce Vita

Who would own the HeLa cell line if the Henrietta Lacks case happened in present-day South Africa?

The HeLa cell line was created in 1951 without consent from Henrietta Lacks, the person whose tissue sample was used. In 2021, the descendants of Henrietta Lacks sued a well-known biotechnology company for the profits it made from the HeLa cell line. In this article, ownership of the cell lines is investigated from a South African legal perspective by considering three possible contemporary scenarios bearing points of similarity to the Henrietta Lacks case. In the first scenario, informed consent is obtained to use a tissue sample for research and to commercialize the products of such research; in the second scenario, informed consent is materially deficient because of an honest mistake on the part of the research institution; and in the third scenario, informed consent is materially deficient due to willful disregard of the law on the part of the research institution. In the first two scenarios, ownership of the cell line created from the tissue sample would vest in the research institution, and the research participant would not have any legal action for financial compensation. However, in the third scenario, ownership of the cell line would vest in the research participant, who would be able to claim all profits made from trading the cell line. Whether the research institution acted in good faith is therefore a crucial determinant of the legal outcome.

The Believer: Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the Passion of John Mack by Ralph Blumenthal

I remember the golden era of UFO abduction research. In 1966 John G. Fuller published The Interrupted Journey and suddenly everyone seemed to know the strange story of Barney and Betty Hill taken from their car by aliens and subjected to medical examinations aboard a flying saucer. The whole town talked about it, so did the whole country. Only ufologists held back, having learned the hard way that the more sensational a UFO story sounded, the more likely it stood on evidential legs too slender to support it. UFOs enjoyed newsworthiness and unaccustomed respect this year; it was no time to puncture the swelling goodwill by falling for a fake, fantasy, or honest mistake (Bullard 2018).
 Still, this case was different. The Hills were highly respected in their community, Fuller was a Saturday Review columnist, and Dr. Benjamin Simon, the psychiatrist who recovered memories of the Hills’ period of missing time by means of hypnosis, was a pillar of his profession. Incredible as the story sounded, it unfolded with credible verisimilitude. It told us more about the aliens and their spaceship than any previous trustworthy report. It even made sense according to the prevailing conception that aliens arrived as explorers like our astronauts, their mission to observe, collect soil samples, and doubtless to study the numerous large mammals having the technology to ride around in four-wheeled machines.

RETRACTED: Network-based response module comprised of gene expression biomarkers predicts response to infliximab at treatment initiation in ulcerative colitis

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/article-withdrawal). This article has been retracted at the request of the authors after consulting with the Editors. During a follow-up study, the authors regretfully discovered that the microarray probe-to-gene mapping was incorrect. Although the methodology and primary findings remain the same, the identity of the biomarker genes are incorrect as a result of this honest mistake. The extent of the changes to correct this information necessitated the publication of a corrected version of this article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trsl.2022.03.006.

Non-Textualism and the Duck Season-Rabbit Season Dramaturgical Dyad: A Very Short Response to Professor Cass Sunstein (And Others)

I amend one word from Professor Sunstein’s conclusion. It is tempting to think that in the kinds of cases [and texts] that are of concern here, non-textualism is a kind of lie. It might be. But it might also be an honest mistake, a matter of sincerely thinking that you are “seeing that” [which all others see or that which is there to be objectively seen]” when you are actually “seeing as” [which is seeing only one meaning among several potential meanings which others see].” Still, it is a serious problem if a judge does not know that she is seeing as. If she is, in fact, seeing as, she should explain why that is the right way to see, and if she thinks that she is seeing that, she might see no need to offer an explanation. To illustrate my point, I refer to how non-textualists have developed Hamilton’s Federalist No. 77 in relation to the doctrinal debate on the unitary theory of the executive and the scope of the President’s removal power. My purpose in doing so is not to settle that substantive debate—a matter about which I have no published or settled views. Rather my purpose is methodological: it is to illustrate how non-textualist commentators and their readers “see” and how they choose to support their understanding of what they “see” with historical and other legal materials.

Finding a vaccine for misinformation

With deliberate deception a growing threat online, social scientists are devising ways to fight back with “cognitive inoculations” In early March, after a wave of coronavirus cases struck a Muslim congregation in India, the hashtag #CoronaJihad went viral on Indian Twitter, and Islamophobic messages began to surge on social media. In one case, a false video showed purportedly Muslim men licking plates—allegedly to spread the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). In reality, these men belonged to a community that strongly discourages wasting food. No one knows who crafted these false messages, or why. But anti-Muslim attacks increased after their release. Hoping to fight an epidemic of misinformation, some researchers have demonstrated the promise of “inoculating” people with training videos and games even before those people are exposed to misinformation. Image credit: Dave Cutler (artist). It’s hardly an isolated example. Misinformation has been rife during the pandemic—ranging from rumors about the virus being an escaped bioweapon to specious reports of a miracle cure doctors won’t tell you about. Of course, this is only the latest flavor of fakery, which includes high-profile efforts such as climate-change denialism, antivaccine agitation (1), and Russian attempts to erode trust in the 2016 election. In every case, says Emma Spiro, a sociologist who is studying coronavirus misinformation at the University of Washington in Seattle, the risk is that “people may use the false information as the basis for decision making and actions that endanger themselves and others.” Experts sometimes distinguish between mis information, which is simply wrong and may even be an honest mistake, and dis information, which is formulated with an intent to deceive. Whatever the name, stemming the onslaught can seem like a losing battle. Researchers, tech companies, journalists, and fact checkers have been trying to debunk misinformation for years. But researchers have found that this …

Charles Darwin did not mislead Joseph Hooker in their 1881 Correspondence about Leopold von Buch and Karl Ernst von Baer

ABSTRACT While Joseph Hooker was considering his upcoming presentation on the geographical distribution of species, he asked Charles Darwin for help with some references. During the ensuing exchange of correspondence, Darwin seems to have contradicted himself, regarding his being aware of Leopold von Buch’s observation that distributed varieties become species, prior to writing On the Origin of Species. Literalists and conspiracists have interpreted this apparent self-contradiction as a sign of duplicity and fraud. However, when the correspondence and Hooker’s address are analysed in context, there is a more compelling explanation. Simply that, in response to direct questioning by Hooker, Darwin conflated the two names of Von Baer and Von Buch, and made an honest mistake.

Honest mistake or perhaps not: The role of descriptive and injunctive norms on the magnitude of dishonesty

AbstractTrivial acts of dishonesty are very prevalent in everyday life and have severe economic and societal consequences. The present study aims to examine the role of descriptive and injunctive norms in minor and major dishonesty under ambiguity. We devised a novel experimental design in which rule violations can be the result of honest mistakes or various dishonest processes. In this ambiguous context, we observed a high prevalence of minor rule violations at baseline. In two experiments, exposure to increased peer cheating (i.e., negative descriptive norms) promoted major rule violations, whereas the presence of explicit or subtle rule reminders (i.e., injunctive norms) marginally reduced minor rule violations but had no impact on major rule violations. We interpret these findings within the framework of social norm theory, self‐maintenance theory, and bounded ethicality. Implications regarding policies that target ordinary unethical behavior are discussed.

An honest mistake: two cases of mistaken dispositions

Abstract Two recent English cases, Hartogs v Sequent1and Payne v Tyler2, provide helpful examples of the application of the guidelines in the Supreme Court decision in Pitt v Holt3for claims seeking to set aside voluntary transactions on the grounds of mistake where significant unexpected tax liabilities are incurred. The facts and quantum of the cases are quite different and demonstrate the potentially wide application of the Pitt v Holt guidelines, as well as the willingness of the English Courts to hear such claims and grant the relief sought. The cases also offer guidance on a number of practical points for potential claimants for claims based on a mistake, in particular on the issues of proper forum, the role of HMRC and the position adopted by fiduciaries as non-contesting parties to the claims.

When Cheating is an Honest Mistake: A Critical Evaluation of the Matrix Task as a Measure of Dishonesty

Dishonesty is an intriguing phenomenon, studied extensively across various disciplines due to its impact on people’s lives as well as society in general. To examine dishonesty in a controlled setting, researchers have developed a number of experimental paradigms. One of the most popular approaches in this regard, is the matrix task, in which participants receive matrices wherein they have to find two numbers that sum to 10 (e.g., 4.81 and 5.19), under time pressure. In a next phase, participants need to report how many matrices they had solved correctly, allowing them the opportunity to cheat by exaggerating their performance in order to get a larger reward. Here, we argue, both on theoretical and empirical grounds, that the matrix task is ill-suited to study dishonest behavior, primarily because it conflates cheating with honest mistakes. We therefore recommend researchers to use different paradigms to examine dishonesty, and treat (previous) findings based on the matrix task with due caution.

Correction to: reply to Woodley of Menie et al.

Proc. R. Soc. B 285 , 20180092 (Published online 21 February 2018) ([doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.0092][1]) In Arslan et al .’s reply to the commentary by Woodley of Menie et al ., the authors were reacting to an earlier version of their commentary than the one that was published. They only … [1]: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0092

Information for authors and editorial policies

Information for authors and editorial policies

Chemists carry out a structural do over

In what is being called an honest mistake, a research group has reported that the structure of the headline compound from a paper it published in 2002 is incorrect. To set the record straight, the team has retracted the paper and at the same time published a new paper reporting the actual structure. The original paper published by Chris Orvig and his group at the University of British Columbia reported the synthesis of a new tetraazamacrocycle ligand (Inorg. Chem. 2002, DOI: 10.1021/ic010716a). The researchers made the compound to see how replacing two methylene groups in a macrocyclic ring with phosphinate groups affected the stability of complexes formed with lanthanide ions. Such complexes are of interest as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging. Orvig says all the characterization data were consistent with the ligand having a dimeric structure. But the team had a hard time growing crystals of the ligand and

'I didn't mean that: It was just a slip of the tongue': Racial slips and gaffes in the public arena.

Speech errors, slips, and gaffes made in the public arena that are perceived to be either implicitly or explicitly racially offensive often result in significant social consequences to the responsible speaker and generate public controversy. The current research, informed by conversation analysis and discursive psychology, examines how speakers manage such troubles-in-speaking in public settings. The sample of naturalistic data includes five such instances and related apologies sourced from YouTube and news websites. The analysis examined how speakers initiated repairs when making offensive racial slips and gaffes and followed these up with apologies. Self-detected transgressions were repaired in fewer turns than other-detected blunders. Speakers accounted for their transgressions as innocent mishaps (e.g., 'it was just a slip of the tongue', 'an honest mistake') to fend off attributions of prejudice or a racist identity. Thus, a common resource that speakers drew upon to exonerate themselves was that what they said, did not align with their psychological intentions. Intention then was a notable psychological resource for denying and fending off attributions of prejudice. Follow-up apologies were related organizationally and worked to either address or decrease the likelihood of dispreferred responses from the public/audience. These apologies included the use of affect, graduation, amplification, and judgements of capacity. Although this research does not address the possible psychological nature of racial slips and gaffes - the question of what they really mean - their occurrence in everyday life and institutional settings suggest that their repressive qualities reflect shared patterns of understanding in societies structured by racial inequality.

THE REASONS FOR THE ORIGINATION OF HONEST MISTAKES IN THE VICTIMS’ TESTIMONIES

The article studies the mechanism of honest mistakes origination in the victims’ testimonies in the process ofperception, memorization and reproduction of the events of the crime. It investigates into the reasons for the origination of honest mistakes in the victims ’ testimonies and suggests their classification depending on: 1) the stage of the testimony formation; a) at the stage of perception: adaptation, contrast, physiological ailments, mental deficiencies, emotional stress, mental and physiological state; b) at the stage of memorization: interference, memory problems, mental illnesses, indoctrination; c) at the stage of reproduction: linguistic and logical distortions; 2) the permanence of reasons (permanent and temporal); 3) the nature of origin (inherent or acquired at the stage ofperception of the events of the crime); 4) the source of origin (external and internal); 5) the character of the honest mistake (objective and subjective). The article reasons that the efficiency of investigation within criminal proceedings is determined by timely identification of mistakes in obtained testimonies, it becomes possible only when the reasons of their origination are timely determined.