Bonus (7) Flashcards
Caruso, E. M., Burns, Z. C., & Converse, B. A. (2016). Slow motion increases perceived intent.
Study 1
AIM
METHOD
RESULT
- establish how the usage of slow motion influences juror’s perception of intent in a shooting
- -> expectation: positive relation
- 500 participants asked to imagine they were jurors
- they either watched a 5 sec. video of a robbery when the store clerk is shot in real time or slow motion
- then they were asked to rate the intent to kill
- significantly more pps who watched the video in slow motion agreed that the shooting “with the intent to kill”
- 39 (real time) vs. 150 (slow mo) unanimous juries
Caruso, E. M., Burns, Z. C., & Converse, B. A. (2016). Slow motion increases perceived intent.
Study 2
AIM
METHOD
RESULT
- establish how the usage of slow motion would influence peoples perception of a “foul” (violent contact) in American football
- 580 pps watched a short clip of one player hitting another player on the helmet (either in slow motion or in real time)
- the pps should rate if 1) the player wanted to hit the other player 2) planned to hit the other player 3) could have avoided it 4) the hitting was intentional
- the pps watching the clip in slow motion thought sign. more often that the player did the forbitten tackle intentionally
- this was mediated by the fact that they also perceived the player to have had more time to decide/avoid
Caruso, E. M., Burns, Z. C., & Converse, B. A. (2016). Slow motion increases perceived intent.
Study 3+4
Study 3
- they used the same video from study 1
- they added a clock for one group of participants who watched in slow motion –> so they could know how much time actually passed
- they wanted to know if that mitigated the bias
- –> did not had a mitigating effect, still perceived more intent in the slow motion/clock condition
Study 4
- used the same clips as in study 1 + 4
- they had one condition where pps watched both real time and slow motion
- they wanted to know if that mitigated the bias effect
- –> it did mitigate the bias but not completely
Cho, K., Barnes, C. M., & Guanara, C. L. (2017). Sleepy punishers are harsh punishers: Daylight saving time and legal sentences.
AIM
METHOD
RESULTS
LIMITATION
- how does sleep deprivation influence sentencing in judges
- -> harsher sentencing if the judge is sleep deprived
- they took the natural quasi-manipulation of sleep deprivation during the shift to daylight saving time in the spring (ca. 40 minutes of sleep loss)
- they examined archival data from judicial punishment handed out in the U.S. federal court
- 4000 cases: 1000 in the “sleepy Monday” condition, other in the control condition (following Mondays)
- length of sentence = dependent variable
- only one district because they differ in sentencing
- sentences on sleepy Mondays were ca. 5% longer than those on comparison Mondays
- no experiment, no causal (just quasicausal) relationship can be established
Danziger, S., Levav, J., & Avnaim-Pesso, L. (2011). Extraneous factors in judicial decisions.
Legal formalism vs. legal realism
Legal formalism =
judges apply legal reasons to the facts of a case in a rational, mechanical, and deliberative manner
Legal realists =
rational application of legal reasons does not
sufficiently explain the decisions of judges –> psychological, political, and social factors influence judicial rulings
“justice is what the judge ate for breakfast”
Danziger, S., Levav, J., & Avnaim-Pesso, L. (2011). Extraneous factors in judicial decisions.
AIM
METHOD
RESULT
LIMITATION
- to examine whether food breaks have an effect on the judges decision
- -> more favourable ruling
- they analysed over a thousand rulings during a 10 month period of 8 Israeli judges
- the ruling were mostly parole request from prisoners (o.ä.)
- they always recoded the rulings of the whole day and the recorded the 2 food breaks the judges had in between
- they found that the rulings were indeed more favourable (allowing parole) in the beginning of the day and after the two breaks (65% favourable)
- the judges were the least favourable before the breaks and in the end of the day (0%)
- -> siehe figure 1
- –> explained are these findings with the fact that those hearing and decision are mentally challenging and that towards the and of a session the judges experience mental depletion and fatigue
- –> those can be (in part) overcome by a short rest, increase of glucose (food) or positive mood
- –> this is (probably) what the judges gain from the break and why they again are more favourable after the break, instead of making a more simplified (not change status-quo) and mood-concurrent (grumpier) decision to deny parole (unfavourable)
Dhami, M. K., & Belton, I. K. (2017). On getting inside the judge’s mind.
- this paper examines the issues that judges have with the scientific research about judicial decision making
- judges are very confident in their decision making
- there is this idea/metaphor of them weighing of the evidence and coming to a logically sound impartial conclusion
- however, we know from research findings that this is not true –> judges decisions are influenced by many things: biases, values, ideology etc.
- these findings are not incorporated and excepted
–> 2 main critiques:
1) Researchers Did Not Study Judges Making Decisions on Real Cases
- true for experiments –> often non-representative examples judges very very seldom have to deal with (elderly lady committing sexual crime)
- true for surveys on decision making –> introspection of decision making processes is difficult, social desirability, memorizing might be difficult
- not true for data analysis of real ruling, BUT not causality can be established
2) The data analysis is not psychological statistically plausible
- nomothetic tradition used in stead of idiographic
tradition
–> try to find a common trend among all judges over one or a few ruling in stead of looking at individual judges and their decision making pattern in many cases
- regression models are not plausible representations of decision making!
–> cues are searched in a random order till one cue for particular decision is found (or out of time)
- also, even if causality is established they cannot look into judges head, but sometimes researcher formulate findings in that way
–> 2 suggestions for improvement:
1) Representative Design
= when studying psychological processes, researchers
ought to use stimuli that are representative of the environments to participants have learned to
respond
2) Use plausible models
- look at individual judges decision making
- use compensatory and non-compensatory analytic models –> more flexible models of decision making (different cues can be used to reach decision in different cases) –> strategy
- cues/heuristics have different weight = Franklins rule
–> some are more often used, some are always used, some only in specific cases (in one judge)
