Week 11 reading 2: Trial Strategy and Tactics chapter Flashcards
The courtroom as a social influence arena
-The courtroom= ready made environment to study social influence in it’s different forms: persuasion, dissuasion, compliance (obedience regarding the instructions of authority figures e.g. judge), conformity (individual jurors go again their own thoughts/ opinions to conform with the other jurors).
-Social influence at many different trial stages: first impressions/ nonverbal messages about trustworthiness, competence, confidence. Jury selection in united states allows lawyers to influence jury members as well because they get to interview them. Then of course when the trial begins this influencing continues (opening + closing statements, cross-examination of witnesses, use of objections).
3 forms of social influence that are the focus in this chapter (list)?
-Persuasion
-Compliance
-Dissuasion
Triers of fact
Who the lawyers are trying to influence. These are the decision makers. In this case will focus on the jurors.
Persuasion Attitudes and the Tripartite model
-Persuasion= an attempt to change a person’s attitudes
-Attitude= is psychological orientation toward a particular stimulus (the attitude object).
-Influential approach to analyzing attitudes= tripartite model. Basically says that attitudes are composed of three components: the affective (emotional), cognitive and behavioural. These predispose individuals to response in consistent ways to an attitude object. The three elements may vary in the strength and direction of their influence e.g. believe it is important to clean the bathroom but hate doing so therefore rarely do the beahviour.
-Breckler et al. (1984) provided empirical support using statistics for the tripartite model by confirming the three separate components (affect, cognition, behavioral) that contributed to participants attitudes of snakes.
Stable versus temporary attitudes in predicting behaviour
-People typically hold a range of stable, and often strongly felt, attitudes toward aspects of the law and criminal justice system e.g. opinions of the death penalty, disagreement about the cause of crime (social or economic) etc.
-Other attitudes are temporary and arise in response to a newly encountered object e.g. for or against a specific defendant.
-The temporary attitudes are the most relevant to a trial tactician because:
(1) more specific and therefore more predictive of behaviour
(2) easier to change than stable long term attitudes: more responsive to new information/ arguments
(3) legal restrictions discourage jurors from allowing feelings and beliefs that are not directly related to the case from influencing their decisions.
Attitude-behaviour relationship
-Beahviour is an element of the tripartite model of attitude which implies that attitudes are always accompanied by a range of behaviours that align with them
-Others will argue that attitudes are unreliable predictors of behaviour e.g. Lapiere chinese couple restaurant study although this study had a few methodological issues, for example, the couple was not stereotypically chinese in that they could both speak perfect English and the people who were spoken to on the phone to assess attitudes were likely different to ones they actually encountered in the restaurant.
-Many now define the behavioural aspect of attitude as a predisposition to act/ behave in a certain way. There is a range of behaviours that may result from a given attitude and attitude holders vary in their need/ extremeness of employing them.
-Predicting how an attitude/ to what extent an attitude will predict behaviour is vital in the legal system as lawyers need to focus on how best to alter jurors’ attitudes to create the desired trial outcome.
Attitude specificity
Attitude- behaviour congruence is greater when an attitude is more specific rather than general/ vague. e.g. in courtroom specific attitude towards particular witness, defendant of version of events is more predictive of behaviour than a more general orientation for or against criminal defendants.
Self-monitoring
-A personality characteristic that comes into play in when trying to persuade jurors
-Self-monitoring= a person’s degree of sensitivity to social contexts.
-A higher self monitor will be more willing than a low self-monitor to adjust his or her behaviour in response to social cues. In other words, low self monitors as “truer” to their beliefs, high self-monitors are more concerned with the impression they make on others.
Elaboration Likelihood model
-Useful to understand the cognitive processes invovled in persuasion
-Provides valuable insight into how best to change the attitudes of others.
-People can be persuaded by two routes: peripherally or centrally. Difference is in how deeply the target processes potentially persuasive information.
-Central route= higher degree of thought and scrutiny
-Peripheral route= processing is less cognitively effortful
-Two routes are opposites on the ‘elaboration continuum’. Where a person sits on the continuum depends on their motivation and ability to devote cognitive resources.
-This reading however treats central and peripheral routes as separate entities as opposed to existing on a continuum
Central-route processing in the ELM
-Attitude change via the central route is a rational process
-Targets examine the main arguments presented by a persuader and compare them with their own world knowledge
-If change occurs it is because the target found the evidence logical and compelling and they will truly believe in this new attitude.
-The process of critically examining arguments and constructing a detailed attitudinal response is called elaboration
Peripheral-Route Processing in the ELM
-Information is not processed deeply
-Are likely to base decisions on information that is peripheral to the main issues ad use heuristic ways of thinking.
-Heuristic= mental shortcuts. Enables people to interpret situations and make decisions without having to resort to complex analysis and reasoning e.g. if the person has a “guilty look” then they are probably guilty rather than weighing up the evidence for and against (more central route)
Which route do targets use in the ELM?
Two factors that determine whether a message recipient goes down the central or peripheral path:
-Ability= if a recipient lacks ability to think deeply about information then they will go down the peripheral route out of necessity (not choice)
-Motivation= central processing provides more effort so individuals need to be motivated in order to do this otherwise will choose go peripherally.
Motivation in the ELM as an influence to what route (central or peripheral is taken)
-An important aspect of motivation is self-relevance. More self-relevant means more likely to process centrally, less self-relevant results in a lack of motivation and greater tendency to process peripherally.
-Enthusiasm to take the central route is more likely if the recipient is high in a ‘need for cognition’ (NFC). This is a personality variable that describes the degree to which a person typically feels compelled to understand things/ general level of curiosity. If low on NFC more likely to be persuaded by a weak argument as using peripheral cues instead.
Ability in the ELM as an influence to what route (central or peripheral is taken)
-Unable to process information centrally (e.g. lack of intelligence, the information is presented in a really confusing way etc.)= peripheral route out of necessity
-This will happen even if motivation is high
-If individuals have more expertise/ background knowledge in the are more likely to have ability to process centrally.
-Distractions or competing demands may also come into play impairing the recipients ability to concentrate on and embellish on the message therefore resulting in peripheral processing.
What form of persuasion most benefits the persuader?
Central route attitude change means…
-The resulting attitude is more complete and robust= easier to defend.
-Also tends to be more memorable and accessible.
-Salient pieces of evidence to support the attitude should also be more memorable as they were considered deeply in forming the attitude.
-Additionally, the attitudes should be more stable and resilient in the face of counter attacks
-Some evidence to suggest that attitude- consistent behavior in more likely
=Central is therefore more beneficial BUT… may not always be realistic (if motivation/ ability is low) or sensible—- If the arguments presented are weak or flawed the persuader would want to discourage individuals from scrutinize them too closely (i.e. going down the peripheral route is better).
-This means that the persuader should never fully rely on central processing, peripheral cues should also align.
Distraction
-According the ELM distraction reduces persuasion only when the persuasive message could have stood up to close scrutiny i.e. when the arguments are strong
-So distraction is bad when arguments are strong as it prevents central processing but good when arguments are weak as preventing central processing is preferable.
Persuasion in the courtroom
-According the the ELM strategies should depend heavily on whether arguments are strong or weak. Strong argument= want to do everything to encourage centrally processing. Weak argument= encourage peripherally processing.
-Manipulate motivation and ability.
Encouraging or discouraging central route processing (motivation)
Ways to increase motivation to process centrally:
-Make messages more relevant to jurors (Try an elicit details in direct or cross-examination that will resonate with jury members e.g. local resident, of similar background, likewise want to avoid brining up things that jurors won’t be able to relate to/ may alienate them if possible.
-Present in an engaging style that sparks interest and attention. Could convey points in the style of rhetorical questions rather than statements to encourage elaboration/ deep processing (note: this only a good strategy if individuals are not already motivated to process centrally- if they are asking them to ponder questions can disrupt the natural progress of their thinking adding greater cognitive effort).
Ways to discourage motivation to processing centrally:
-Factors above but in reverse e.g. make evidence appear remote from the lives of jurors, make evidence less interesting.
-Make message source appear as trustworthy as possible. Then individuals (especially those low in need for cognition) are likely to process peripherally as they simply trust an ‘expert’. We tend to elaborate less on information from trustworthy sources.
Enabling or disabling central-route processing (ability)
Ways to enable central route processing (do when evidence is sound):
-Limit distractions
-Slow speed of communication (gives time to elaborate + think deeply)
-Decrease complexity/ put things in simple terms
-Increase repetition (helps individuals grasp and build open messages- although need depends on how difficult concepts are to grasp, don’t want to bore people as this would decrease motivation!)
Ways to disable central route processing thus increase peripherally processing (do when evidence is weak):
-Increase distractions by wearing flashy attire, squeaky shoes, use slightly unusual gestures or turns of phrase.
-Fast speed of communication
-Increase complexity/ put things in hard to
understand terms.
-Decrease repetition: relates to speed of communication (allows less time to elaborate and think deeply about ideas).
