similarity in substance and detail between the instances when the behaviour
was exhibited. The greater these two measures, the more the person has
marked the behaviour as their own.
Rules of Evidence
In some fields, of which human resources management is prominent,
principles of psychology are deployed. One major use is to help select the
best candidate for
a position in a firm where concepts of personality and
character are heavily involved. By contrast the law of evidence has been
reluctant to allow this sort of evidence. Especially in criminal law, the notion is
strong the proof should rest on the best evidence which is generally
observational evidence. Moreover, to bring in evidence that a person charged
with an offence has done something similar before or has bad character risks a
conviction base on prejudice.
For these and other reasons common law has allowed courts restricted access
to evidence of disposition (which legally goes under a variety of names such
as similar facts, tendency and character). The common law rules themselves
are hazy anyway and can vary between jurisdictions. Further variations
between jurisdictions are created by the fact that some or all of the relevant
rules have been put on a statutory footing.
Proving Facts: General Behaviour
Introduction
Society at large also displays patterns of behaviour since there are generally
observed ways for how people normally go about their business, about how
things occur and for how the world works. Essentially these concepts of how
thing work -
generally, normally or often -
are essentially statements of
probability. There are two forms of probability – subjective probability, which
is based on some form of observation and objective probability that applies in
the special case where all outcomes are equally likely.
Subjective Probability
Subjective probability can be determined just by observation. Sometimes,
however, it can be based on calculations applied to observed data.
Observation
Sometimes patterns of behaviour that courts deploy in finding facts are based
on scientific observation and research. Some good illustrations are the
statistics used by actuaries for the purposes of writing life insurance policies
and the epidemiological data used by health workers for planning purposes.
On other occasions these patterns of behaviour are not scientifically grounded
in this way. They can be based on such things as common sense, common
observation and popular understanding. In these cases a court can only do its
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