Dr. Ashley Votruba
University of Nebraska – Lincoln Department of Psychology
Dr. Votruba joined the UNL psychology faculty as part of the Law-Psychology Program in Fall 2017. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology from Arizona State University and her J.D. from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law in 2017. Dr. Votruba also served as a Judicial Clerk for Justice Robert M. Brutinel on the Arizona Supreme Court from 2015-2016.
Dr. Votruba’s research examines how cognitive biases, heuristics, and culture influences policy and legal decision-making in the areas of alternative dispute resolution, tort law, criminal law, and family law. For example, some of her past work has examined how culturally-derived lay beliefs affected endorsements of child custody policies. She has also examined how heuristic processing influences the persuasiveness of policy recommendations from expert groups on politically controversial topics. Currently, Dr. Votruba is focused on understanding how psychological factors–such as self-construal–interact with situational factors to influence dispute resolution preferences for civil legal issues.