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Legal Socialization

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Fine, A. D., & Trinkner, R. (in press). Legal socialization. In R. Gurung (Ed.). Routledge
encyclopedia of psychology in the real world. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

This paper will not exactly replicate the final version published in the Encyclopedia of
Psychology in the Real World. It is not the Version of Record.

Authors:
Adam D. Fine, Ph.D.
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University
411 N. Central Ave, Suite 633
Phoenix, AZ 85004
(602)496-2337

Rick Trinkner, Ph.D.

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University
Rick.Trinkner@asu.edu

Authors’ Note: Both authors contributed equally to the entry.

 Abstract
In its most general sense, legal socialization refers to the process through which
individuals develop values, attitudes, and beliefs about laws, the institutions that create law, and
the people that enforce law (Finckenauer, 1998; Trinkner & Cohn, 2014). Although seminal
works in the field (e.g., Cohn & White, 1990; Tapp & Levine, 1974) referred to it as the
development of values and attitudes pertaining to law, the field of legal socialization has
expanded to also include the processes by which people develop their understanding of the law
and legal actors within society, especially their relationship with such legal forces (Tyler &
Trinkner, 2018). Although legal socialization may occur both formally and informally, the
process appears to be both individualized and developmental in nature, resulting from the
complex interplay between an individual’s cognitive and emotional maturity, as well as the
influence of personal and vicarious experiences. Critically, legal socialization plays a
fundamental role in understanding legal behaviour, including both compliance and cooperation
with the law and legal authority (Trinkner & Tyler, 2016). This entry overviews the legal
socialization field, focusing on the: (1) underlying fundamental assumptions, (2) core
components of the process, (3) dominant theoretical approaches, and (4) underexplored areas.

Keywords: legitimacy; procedural justice; legal cynicism; legal attitudes; legal reasoning
 Legal Socialization

1 Fundamental Assumptions

As a field, legal socialization is rooted in the assumption that the law is a central social
institution of society that ties together the fabric of social life (Tapp & Levine, 1974). The
premise is that the law is just as important to ordering society and facilitating human interaction
as any other social institution (e.g., the family, the school, the church, etc.). It also assumes that
the process is ubiquitous, continuous, and reciprocal (Tapp & Levine, 1974; Tyler & Trinkner,
2018).

Legal socialization is ubiquitous in that, despite its name, it expands beyond the legal
world (e.g., Trinkner & Cohn, 2014). In addition to legal institutions, the social environment is
also made up of non-legal institutions that are often organized around phenomenologically-
similar rule systems and authority hierarchies. Certainly, while youth eventually differentiate
between legal and social authority (Fine, Kan, & Cauffman, 2019), children also develop their
early views of the law and legal authority from interactions that take place within the home and
school environments (Tyler & Trinkner, 2018; Amemiya et al., 2019). As a result, it is believed
that legal development is shaped by individuals’ interfacing with these extra-legal sources,
particularly during childhood before most youth are exposed to the law in any concrete way
(Tyler & Trinkner, 2018).

Legal socialization is continuous in that it transpires over time, both in terms of the life
course as well as the historical context (Tapp & Levine, 1974; Tyler & Trinkner, 2018). With
respect to the life course, it has long been understood that people’s understanding of the law and
their relationship with it begin developing much earlier in the life course, likely during childhood
(Tapp & Levine, 1974). As people age into adolescence, they begin to directly interact with
legal authority (Fine et al., 2017) as this is when they enter the peak of the age-crime curve
(Sweeten, Piquero, & Steinberg, 2013) and begin to experience the law and legal authority both
personally and vicariously (Fine et al., 2016). However, legal socialization can be expected to
continue changing into adulthood. Specifically, during the transition into adulthood, individuals
enmesh themselves in their local communities (e.g., buying a house, starting a career, sending
their children to school) and become better integrated with the larger society (Hirschi, 1969). As
they do so, their beliefs about what the law should be doing and how it should exert formal social
control likely change in response to the changing nature of their daily lives and role in society.
Indeed, when they begin to have their own children or interact with the next generation, it is
believed that they undergo a fundamental role shift from being the subjects of legal socialization
pressures to being agents of the process responsible for socializing the next generation (Tapp,
1976). For example, in becoming a parent, an individual is tasked with socializing another
individual about the proper role of authority and how to interface with sources of regulatory
control. With respect to historical context, laws and the societal norms underlying them fluctuate
over time. Indeed, many people will likely be able to remember something they believed should
be against the law when they were younger, but do not share the same feeling as adults (and vice
versa). For example, the US has seen massive changes in people’s attitudes concerning
marijuana regulation in just the last 20 years (Saad, 2014). As another example, our perceptions
of legal authority may change based on crime rates, fear of crime, or perceptions of injustice
(Fine, Kan, & Cauffman, 2019). Consequently, legal socialization is perceived to be continuous
in nature both in terms of the life course as well as the historical context.

Finally, legal socialization assumes a reciprocal relationship between community

members and the law (Tapp, 1991; Tapp & Levine, 1974; Trinkner & Tyler, 2016). In one
sense, this reciprocity assumption refers to the notion that the relationship between the law and
the community not only encompasses the roles and rights of legal institutions and their agents,
but also those of the citizens as well. In other words, legal socialization recognizes that
individuals have strong beliefs about the duties and purposes of the law with respect to the
community, as well as the responsibilities and obligations of the community towards the law. In
another sense, reciprocity simply refers to the fact that while the law affects citizens, citizens
also affect the law. Although most research focuses on the former (e.g., Fagan & Tyler, 2005,
Jackson et al., 2013, Kaiser & Reisig, 2019), it is important to note that the law is not a static
entity but is constantly changing due to pressure from the community. Essentially, legal
socialization does not view individuals as passive entities waiting for the law and other
regulatory agencies to shape their legal development, but rather as active participants constantly
trying to make sense of their socio-legal environment and pushing for change when they believe
the legal system falls short (Tapp & Levine, 1974; Tyler & Trinkner, 2018). Indeed, legal
socialization as an academic field of study largely emerged as a way to understand the civil
rights era of the 1960s (Tapp, 1971). A similar phenomenon exists today where recalcitrant
racial disparities (Justice & Meares, 2014), widespread adoption of technology allowing mass
surveillance (Friedman, 2017), police militarization (Moule et al., 2019), and controversial use of
force incidents especially among people of colour (Gerber & Jackson, 2017) has led the
community to fundamentally question how police practices are educating community members
about their status in society. This, in turn, has spawned a new reform era in which police
departments are looking to change the way they interface with society to enact social control
(Meares, 2019; President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing).

2 Overview of the Core Components

Traditionally, legal socialization scholars have emphasized three core components of the
legal socialization process: the internalization of legal values, the formation of law-related
attitudes, and the development of legal reasoning (Cohn & White, 1990; Tapp & Levine, 1974;
Tyler & Trinkner, 2018). Scholars have begun to shift their attention to more complex
constructs—legitimacy and legal cynicism—that are just as vital to understanding the legal
socialization process, but emerge from the interplay of values, attitudes, and reasoning.

3 Legal Values

The first core element of the legal socialization process is the internalization of legal
values (Tapp & Levine, 1974; Tyler & Trinkner, 2018). Legal values represent normative
standards about how the law and its agents ought to behave when enacting formal social control.
This includes the social morals and norms underlying laws, as well as ideas about the ideal
nature of legal authority. Fundamentally, legal values “act as guiding principles of justice,
liberty, and social control” (Trinkner & Tyler, 2016, p. 422), informing our beliefs and
understanding about what types of power the law should have and how those powers should be
used. In doing so, they provide the blueprint for determining if the legal system is a legitimate
entity entitled to obedience (Bottoms & Tankebe, 2012; Jackson et al., 2013; Tyler, 2006). As a
result, they are a fundamental source of internal motivation to follow the law and cooperate with
legal authority.
Tyler and Trinkner (2018) have provided a useful taxonomy that categorizes legal values
along three basic domains: decision-making concerns, treatment concerns, and boundary
concerns. At the core of decision making issues is the understanding that a functioning justice
system provides stability to a neighbourhood as a source of social control. In addition, it also
provides an avenue to resolve conflict among community members without the use of violence.
The law is given a tremendous amount of power to carry out these functions. However, legal
authorities are not given free rein in their decisions to utilize that power. People hold normative
beliefs about the appropriate way the law and its agents should make decisions when carrying
out their functions. For example, in the US, community members expect that decisions will be
made in a neutral manner and that they will be given a voice during the decision-making process
(Tyler, 2006).
The second domain of Tyler and Trinkner’s (2018) taxonomy of legal values concerns
issues of treatment. The way the system treats individuals provides people with information
about their role, standing, and status within society (Justice & Meares, 2014; Tyler & Lind,
1992) and informs people of the character and motivation of legal authority and whether they are
worthy of trust. Within the US, decades of work have shown that community members expect
legal authority to be wielded in manner that is respectful, transparent, and benevolent (Tyler,
2006).
The final domain of Tyler and Trinkner’s (2018) taxonomy encompasses individuals’
beliefs about boundaries and the appropriate scope of the law. The law is not given unfettered
power over all aspects of people’s lives. People recognize that in certain instances, it is
necessary to sublimate their personal autonomy and acquiesce to the law, while in other
situations they reject the authority of the law to regulate their behaviour. Where individuals
draw those boundaries reflects their legal values; thus, such boundaries are often distinct from
the actual laws, rules, and regulations. The key finding in research on this domain is that when
legal authority intrudes into areas of life that the community perceives to be “off limits” to the
law, it delegitimizes its authority and the authority of the broader system (Hamm et al., 2017;
Huq et al. 2017; Trinkner et al., 2018).

4 Legal Attitudes

A second core element of the legal socialization process is the formation of legal attitudes
(Cohn & White, 1990; Tyler & Trinkner, 2018). Generally, attitudes are defined as positive or
negative dispositions toward an object (e.g., a person, social group, or idea) that contains
cognitive and affective components (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998). Legal attitudes are positive and
negative evaluations of the law and its authorities that encompass both the tangible
representations of the law encountered in everyday life (e.g., police officers) and the intangible
ideals the legal system is predicated upon (e.g., the rule of law). Whereas legal values represent
individuals’ beliefs about how the law ought to behave, legal attitudes emerge out of people’s
experience with how the law actually behaves (Tyler et al., 2014). In this respect, they are
grounded on lived experiences, both direct and vicarious, within one’s sociolegal environment.
However, similar to values, attitudes serve as an internal motivating force, capable of
encouraging cooperative and defiant legal behaviour alike (Cohn et al., 2010; Finckenauer, 1995;
Tyler, 2005).

5 Legal Reasoning

A third element of the legal socialization process is the development of legal reasoning
(Cohn & White, 1990; Tapp & Levine, 1974). As people age, they gain increasingly more
complex and nuanced cognitive schemas containing their ideas about laws, rights, legal
responsibilities, and appropriate behaviour. From this perspective, individuals are not passive
entities, but rather are evolving thinkers constantly “constructing, critiquing, and reconstructing
increasingly complex views of the law and legal authority” grounded in their ideals about the
appropriate role of law in society as well as the reality of their lived experiences (Tyler &
Trinkner, 2018, p. 66). Thus, legal reasoning enables individuals to not only provide meaning to
their sociolegal environment (Cohn & White, 1990; Tapp, 1991), but also to critically evaluate
how much the current manifestation of the law actually aligns with one’s notions about the ideal
purpose and function of the law (Tapp, 1991).

6 Legitimacy

Legal socialization scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the development
of legitimacy of the law (Tyler & Trinkner, 2018). This work begins with the premise that
individuals have ideals and values about the appropriate purpose, scope, and behaviour of the
legal system. They judge legal authority to be legitimate to the extent that they embody those
values (Jackson et al., 2013). In its broadest sense, then, legitimacy is the judgment that legal
authority is appropriate and proper (Tyler, 2006). In this respect, legitimacy represents a
normative binding between the regulatory state and the community (Bottoms & Tankebe, 2012;
Jackson et al., 2012).
Legitimacy is central to a well-functioning legal system because it promotes cooperation
and compliance (Bolger & Walters, 2019; Tyler & Jackson, 2013; Walters & Bolger, 2018).
Importantly, legitimacy-driven cooperation and compliance are voluntary rather than
compulsory. In other words, when people see the law as a legitimate authority, their motivation
to acquiesce comes from an internalized obligation to obey rather than a fear of the negative
consequences from disobedience (Tyler 2006). Because people are internally motivated to
voluntarily follow the law, the legal system has to spend fewer resources securing compliance
through surveillance and deterrence (Tyler, 2009).
7 Legal Cynicism

Like legitimacy, legal cynicism has gained considerable traction among legal
socialization scholars (Fagan & Tyler, 2005). A functional legal system depends on self-
regulation by community members, as it is impossible for legal agents to be everywhere at all
times to enact social control. Self-regulation emerges, in large part, on the degree to which
people have internalized social norms dictating proper conduct. Rooted in classical notions
about anomie and normlessness (Durkheim, 1897/1993; Merton, 1938), legal cynicism
represents a rejection of those norms, and by extension the laws they undergird (Sampson &
Bartusch, 1998). A cynical individual does not view laws, rules, or directives of legal authorities
to be binding in any real sense. As a result, cynical individuals will resist the notion that it is
their responsibility to follow the law or comply with legal agents (Fagan & Piquero, 2007; Kaiser
& Reisig, 2019).

8 Overview of the Theoretical Approaches

Despite its 50-year history, only two major theoretical perspectives have emerged to
explain the legal socialization process: the cognitive developmental approach and the authority
relations approach. The former perspective positions individuals as active participants in the
legal socialization process that represents the interplay of natural maturation and environmental
exposure to the law (Tapp & Kohlberg, 1971). That approach has largely been replaced in
modern discussions by the latter approach, which emphasizes exposure to the law and legal
authorities (Fagan & Tyler, 2005; Piquero et al., 2005). Below, we discuss each in turn.

9 Cognitive Developmental Approach

During the 1970s, the legal socialization field was primarily dominated by the cognitive
developmental approach (Cohn & White, 1990; Finckenauer, 1995; Tapp & Levine, 1974). This
framework, which is grounded in classic psychological theories of cognitive (Piaget, 1932/1965)
and moral (Kohlberg, 1963/1965) development, emphasizes the complex interplay between the
individual’s cognitive development and socio-environmental influences (Tapp, 1976).
Historically, this approach was concerned more with individuals’ relationships with laws and
rules than with legal authorities. Fundamentally, this model is rooted in maturation which drives
increasingly advanced cognitive processes that develop throughout the life-course. Rooted in
prevailing developmental theories of the time, the cognitive approach is most well-known for
conceptualizing legal socialization as a stage-like progression of legal reasoning, which are
described below. However, it is important to note that these stages are neither mutually exclusive
nor invariant; while certain types of reasoning are more/less prevalent at different ages, people
are capable of using each type of reasoning at any point in the life course.
Initially, young children primarily function at the preconventional level, where they are
concerned with avoiding punishments and exhibit a deference to the law (Tapp, 1976; Tapp &
Levine, 1974). Here, individuals understand their relationship through the law largely through an
instrumental lens. Through experience and cognitive developmental changes that permit the
youth to view more complexities in the world, the conventional stage emerges, reflecting a
qualitative shift in thinking. Now, youth understand their relationship with the law through a
social lens, recognizing that the law facilitates social interaction and organizes society. During
this stage, individuals become more concerned with fulfilling the expectations of their role as a
part of society, and the thinking shifts towards obeying the law in order to maintain one’s status
as a “good” person in society and to maintain law-and-order for the good of society. In the final
stage, postconventional, individuals view their relationship with the law through the lens of
personal autonomy. Crucially, they are better able to distinguish between principles of justice
and concrete laws or societal conventions. As a result, individuals are able to evaluate the current
manifestation of the law—the criminal justice system and its authorities (e.g., police)—in terms
of justice and moral validity. From a cognitive developmental perspective, this critical
evaluation spurs people to speak out against and disobey laws that are inherently unjust even if
they are espoused by much of society.
Although the cognitive developmental approach gained traction during the 1970s-1990s,
few studies today leverage the framework. In large part, this occurred because of the mixed
evidence linking variations in reasoning ability to legal behaviour (Tyler & Trinkner, 2018), as
well as the recognition of the limited utility of moral reasoning (Haidt, 2001) in the broader
literature informing the cognitive developmental approach. Although work has begun to address
the first issue (Cohn et al., 2010, 2012; Grant, 2006), no attempts have been made to address the
second issue. However, the work of the cognitive developmentalists provided much of the
modern field’s structure and organization. Perhaps their largest impact was to draw attention to
childhood and adolescence as critical periods in legal development, an area that has historically
lacked good scholarship (Tyler & Trinkner, 2018). Their core argument is that “children develop
an orientation toward law and legal authorities early in life, and that this early orientation shapes
both adolescent- and adult-law-related behavior” (Fagan & Tyler, 2005, p. 219). That is, views
that crystallize during childhood and adolescence impact not just behaviour during those
developmental periods, but also into adulthood. This is just as true today as it was in the 1970s
during the infancy of legal socialization research.

10 Authority Relations Approach

The authority relations approach is based on the assumption that youths’ experiences with
legal authorities are teachable moments in which legal authority provides information about the
purpose and role of law in society (Tyler, 2005; Tyler et al., 2014), as well as identity-rich
information about their own status within society more broadly (Justice & Meares, 2014). In
doing so, legal authorities are the primary agent driving the internalization of law-related values
and attitudes. Much of this work draws from the decades of research on procedural justice
theory, arguing that procedurally-fair behaviour (i.e., respectful, impartial, benevolent treatment
and decision-making) on the part of the law promotes its legitimacy and acts as a bulwark against
a cynical viewpoint. Legitimacy and cynicism, in turn, help sustain and strengthen the ability of
legal authorities to elicit compliance and cooperation. A wide variety of studies, within and
outside the United States, with juveniles and adults, and with justice-involved and community-
based samples, have provided support for these pathways and note the critical importance of
authority interactions in the legal socialization process (Fine et al., 2017; Murphy, 2015; Reisig
& Lloyd, 2009; Trinkner et al., 2019). Researchers are increasingly focusing on how to improve
legitimacy, beginning during childhood (Fine, Padilla, & Tapp, 2019).
Tyler and Trinkner (2018; see also Trinkner & Tyler, 2016) have coalesced the literature
in this area into their model of consensual versus coercive legal socialization strategies. On their
account, coercive strategies are rooted in a sanctions-based understanding of human motivation.
Here, authorities emphasize a command and control style in which youth are told what to do and
what not to do. Compliance is secured through the use of force, punishments, and sanctions.
Consequently, coercive approaches encourage an unstable relationship between youth and the
law based on dominance and fear, which often results in youth rejecting legal authority. In
contrast, consensual strategies are rooted in a value-based understanding of human motivation.
Here, authorities emphasize negotiation and mutual participation when interacting with youth in
an effort to instil positive legal values. The goal is to elicit voluntary deference through the
formation of a supportive orientation toward the law. This approach theoretically promotes a
comparatively more stable relationship with authority based on consent and the acceptance of
legal authority as a force of social control. Early tests have shown support for this model
(Mazerolle et al., in press).

11 Underdeveloped Areas of Research in Legal Socialization

The legal socialization literature has expanded dramatically in recent decades. In the last
fifteen years, research on legal socialization within the United States has increasingly focused on
race and ethnicity. This is necessary considering there continues to be stark racial and ethnic
differences in justice system and police contact (see Elliott & Reid, 2019; Stevens & Morash,
2015). The overwhelming majority of research suggests that youth of colour, particularly
Black/African American youth, report more negative perceptions of the law, justice system, and
law enforcement than do White youth (see Fine, Rowan, & Simmons, 2019; Peck, 2015).
However, there has been little focus on applying a legal socialization lens to those experiences
that are especially pronounced among certain communities. In particular, we note three areas.
First, in recognition that youth of colour exhibit a racial vulnerability to law enforcement
violence or biased treatment, parents of youth of colour directly socialize their children to
prepare them to navigate potential racism in interactions with legal authority, as well as to cope
with the lingering effects of biased treatment in the community. Colloquially, this is known as
“the talk” (Malone Gonzalez, 2019, p. 380). While research on this topic is expanding
particularly within the racial socialization literature (Dow, 2016; Saleem et al., 2016), it has
largely been ignored by legal socialization scholars despite its importance to legal development.
The second concerns Hispanic and Latinx youth. Evidence suggests that Hispanic and
Latinx individuals face more intense criminalization and biased treatment at the hands of legal
authority than do Whites, but less than Blacks (Hagan, Shedd, & Payne, 2005; Sickmund,
Sladky, Kang, & Puzzanchera, 2015). However, Weitzer and Tuch (2005, p. 305) noted that the,
“literature is insufficient to determine whether Hispanic perceptions of the police take the form
of a ‘minority-group’ perspective similar to that of blacks, whether their views more closely
align with those of whites, or whether they take an intermediate position.” Indeed, some studies
indicate that Hispanic or Latinx youth report similar perceptions of the law, law enforcement,
and justice system as Black or African American youth, others find that their perceptions more
closely resemble White youth. Unfortunately, though research on Hispanic/Latinx youths’ legal
socialization is growing, this remains as true today as it did in 2005 (e.g., Abate & Venta, 2018).
The third concerns immigration. In many cases, immigrants to the United States come
from regions with poorly functioning governments or corrupt officials (Piquero et al., 2016). As
Piquero and colleagues note, many arrive with idealized perceptions of American legal
authorities. However, it is also highly likely that the legal socialization of various groups of
immigrants vary, especially depending on how many generations a family have been in the U.S.
Further, despite the overwhelming literature indicating that immigrants, regardless of
documentation status, do not engage in more crime than their native-born counterparts (see
Bersani et al., 2018; Piquero et al., 2016), the modern climate is dominated by crimmigration,
which is broadly construed as the criminalization of immigration (Chacón 2012; Ewing et al.,
2015). In this era, legal authorities in the U.S. are increasingly punitive towards immigrants,
particularly those who are undocumented. For instance, as a part of new zero-tolerance policies
at the border with Mexico, the U.S. government separated thousands of children from families
and detained them in the summer of 2018, events that received ubiquitous attention throughout
the country. These events may have impacted the legal socialization of the children and families
(Ryo, 2019). It might be expected that, due to personal and vicarious experiences with
crimmigration, modern immigrants to the United States would report poor perceptions of legal
authority and the law, but the legal socialization literature on the topic, to date, is sparse
(Armenta & Rosales, 2019; Ryo, 2016, 2017). More attention must be given to this issue
considering the scale: approximately 43.6 million immigrants currently reside in the United
States, and one in four is undocumented (Passel & Cohn, 2016).

12 Conclusions

Legal socialization refers to the process through which individuals develop values,
attitudes, and beliefs about laws, the institutions that create law, and the people that enforce law
(Finckenauer, 1998; Trinkner & Cohn, 2014). Critically, legal socialization plays a fundamental
role in understanding legal behaviour, including both compliance and cooperation with the law
and legal authority (Tyler & Trinkner, 2018; Walters & Bolger, 2018). Although the field has a
long and rich history spanning multiple disciplines and over a half-century (Tapp & Levine,
1974; Tapp, 1976), it is experiencing almost an unparalleled resurgence in criminology,
particularly surrounding legitimacy and cynicism.
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