Monika Gruter Cheney, J.D.
The Gruter Institute provides a forum for scholars across disciplines to explore scientific findings about the human mind and human nature and to consider how this information relates to a wide range of legal and social issues. In pursuing such interdisciplinary work, one principle consistently guiding the work of the Institute is that if law is fundamentally aimed at affecting human behavior, then it makes sense for law to understand human behavior . Therefore, the law and those whose work relates to law, benefit from access to leading scientific findings about human behavior. This premise extends to numerous other social sciences, such as economics, where the effects of rules on human behavior, be they formal or informal rules, are of equal interest. Communicating and utilizing insights about human behavior is not a simple task. And insights from the traditional social sciences must also be considered. However, the realization that biology is making advances in its understanding of human behavior with ever-increasing speed and accuracy suggests that the mission of the Gruter Institute is all the more useful and important. As Executive Director, it is my goal to further enable scholars and practitioners of law, economics and other social sciences to keep abreast of the most recent scientific findings about human behavior and to collaborate on applying the insights of such findings across disciplines.