Jury Decision Making Flashcards
what is a shadow jury?
shadow jurys - a group of people will sit in a real life trial, they will make decisions on what they see in the trial. They will then go to a quiet room to deliberate and are asked to give reasons for their decisions.
no consequences/emotional involvement
ethical
high external validity
what is a mock jury?
they are re enactments of a courtroom setting a trial. they are asked to make judgements on what they see and wether they think they are guilty or not guilty. They may be asked to do a questionnaire instead on the type of judgment they made
no consequences/emotional involvement
no external validity
can establish cause and effect
what is the halo effect?
the idea that people who are more attractive are perceived in more of a positive light.
research evidence for the halo effect
Taylor and Butcher - PPTs were given a transcript of a fictional mugging, and attached a photo of an attractive and unattractive person. PPTs were more likely to accuse the unattractive person as guilty.
is there a bias for gender in trials?
both sex and attractiveness have an affect on the severity of sentencing. jurors find female defendants to be more believable. This is the opposite for crimes against children.
is there a racial bias in trails?
Yes - Badbury and williams found that black defendants were less likely to be convicted by a majority black jury. a majority white jury is more likely to convict a black defendant. hispanic jury’s are more likely to convict a black defendant. black defendants are more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than violent crimes.
what is pretrial publicity?
this is media and other coverage of a case before the trial takes place. but courts may put a gagging order in to make sure this does not happen
what effect does pretrial publicity have on jurors?
this could affect their schemas of the trail. The media could put the defendant in a negative or positive light and this could mix up the info that the jurors get in the trial and cause them to get an opinion of them before the trail even starts.
what does the order of the evidence presented have an affect on the jury?
lawyers will put the best witnesses and pieces of evidence at the start and at the end of the case which links to recency effect in psychology. this makes sure that jurys remember the evidence and may make a decision from this.
what is majority influence?
we think that the majority of people is correct and when there are more people telling you someone is guilty or not then you are more likely to go along with this
what is minority influence?
a minority in the jury is more likely to have constant and influential points, this can make the majority to question their own view point.
what is voir dire?
when attorneys can question the biases of the jury and can get rid of them if they thin they have a conflict of interest.
Strengths of this theory
the use of meta analysis for the studies can be a strength due to the merging of research and more PPT numbers mean that larger numbers can be used for statistical tests.
the application of this is large due to the fact they can help sway a jury in different ways.
weaknesses of this theory
the studies can never imitate the real jury and it is unethical to sway a real jury one way or the other for research. there is no emotional involvement in the research so low ecological validity.
