Bio

Mikaela Spruill is a postdoctoral fellow with the SPARQ research collaborative in Stanford University's Department of Psychology.

An expert in psychology and law, the objective of her research is to examine how the law shapes individual psychologies, and how individuals produce judgments that define laws and policies. Leveraging quantitative and qualitative experimental methods, she tests how individually expressed factors and structurally imposed factors inform the judgments and decisions that people come to. Her research reveals how the racialized experiences that people have in stratified societies translates to decision making, and demonstrates how those decisions define and reinforce larger inequalities in society.

Professional Education

  • Ph.D., Cornell University, Psychology (2023)
  • M.A., Cornell University, Psychology (2021)
  • M.A., Wake Forest University, Experimental Psychology (2018)
  • B.S., The College of William & Mary, Neuroscience (2016)

Stanford Advisors

Contact

  • Academic
    mspruill@stanford.edu
    University - Scholar Department: Psychology Position: Postdoctoral Scholar

Additional Info

Links

All Publications

  • Trial by jury: psychological research contributions to an enduring legal institution Research Handbook on Law and Psychology Spruill, M., Hans, V. P. Edward Elgar Publishing. 2024; 1: 108–121

    View details for DOI 10.4337/9781800881921.00016

  • Strategic Messaging to Promote Policies that Advance Racial Equity: What Do We Know, and What Do We Need to Learn? MILBANK QUARTERLY Niederdeppe, J., Liu, J., Spruill, M., Lewis, N. A., Moore, S., Fowler, E., Gollust, S. E. 2023; 101 (2): 349-425

    Abstract

    Policy Points Many studies have explored the impact of message strategies to build support for policies that advance racial equity, but few studies examine the effects of richer stories of lived experience and detailed accounts of the ways racism is embedded in policy design and implementation. Longer messages framed to emphasize social and structural causes of racial inequity hold significant potential to enhance support for policies to advance racial equity. There is an urgent need to develop, test, and disseminate communication interventions that center perspectives from historically marginalized people and promote policy advocacy, community mobilization, and collective action to advance racial equity.Long-standing racial inequities in health and well-being are shaped by racialized public policies that perpetuate disadvantage among Black, Brown, Indigenous, and people of color. Strategic messaging can accelerate public and policymaker support for public policies that advance population health. We lack a comprehensive understanding of lessons learned from work on policy messaging to advance racial equity and the gaps in knowledge it reveals.A scoping review of peer-reviewed studies from communication, psychology, political science, sociology, public health, and health policy that have tested how various message strategies influence support and mobilization for racial equity policy domains across a wide variety of social systems. We used keyword database searches, author bibliographic searches, and reviews of reference lists from relevant sources to compile 55 peer-reviewed papers with 80 studies that used experiments to test the effects of one or more message strategies in shaping support for racial equity-related policies, as well as the cognitive/emotional factors that predict their support.Most studies report on the short-term effects of very short message manipulations. Although many of these studies find evidence that reference to race or use of racial cues tend to undermine support for racial equity-related policies, the accumulated body of evidence has generally not explored the effects of richer, more nuanced stories of lived experience and/or detailed historical and contemporary accounts of the ways racism is embedded in public policy design and implementation. A few well-designed studies offer evidence that longer-form messages framed to emphasize social and structural causes of racial inequity can enhance support for policies to advance racial equity, though many questions require further research.We conclude by laying out a research agenda to fill numerous wide gaps in the evidentiary base related to building support for racial equity policy across sectors.

    View details for DOI 10.1111/1468-0009.12651

    View details for Web of Science ID 000974982400001

    View details for PubMedID 37096590

    View details for PubMedCentralID PMC10262382

  • Surveys as conversations between makers and takers: A conversational framework for assessing and responding to community needs ANALYSES OF SOCIAL ISSUES AND PUBLIC POLICY Tepper, S. J., Spruill, M. K., Premachandra, B., Lewis, N. A. 2022; 22 (3): 857-875

    View details for DOI 10.1111/asap.12326

    View details for Web of Science ID 000854601000001

  • How Do People Come to Judge What Is "Reasonable"? Effects of Legal and Sociological Systems on Human Psychology PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Spruill, M., Lewis, N. A. 2023; 18 (2): 378-391

    Abstract

    How do people decide what is reasonable? People often have to make those judgments, judgments that can influence tremendously consequential decisions-such as whether to indict someone in a legal proceeding. In this article, we take a situated cognition lens to review and integrate findings from social psychology, judgment and decision-making, communication, law, and sociology to generate a new framework for conceptualizing judgments of reasonableness and their implications for how people make decisions, particularly in the context of the legal system. We theorize that differences in structural and social contexts create information asymmetries that shape people's priors about what is and is not reasonable and how they update their priors in the face of new information. We use the legal system as a context for exploring the implications of the framework for both individual and collective decision-making and for considering the practical implications of the framework for inequities in law and social policy.

    View details for DOI 10.1177/17456916221096110

    View details for Web of Science ID 000843874000001

    View details for PubMedID 36001892

  • Legal descriptions of police officers affect how citizens judge them JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Spruill, M., Lewis, N. A. 2022; 101

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104306

    View details for Web of Science ID 000791298300013

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9334-6865