Week Ten - Juror Decision Making Flashcards
Central role of jury in CJS?
- finders of fact
- conscience of community (jury nullification/equity)
- lay people making important / complex decisions
Why do we look at the individual in juror decision making?
- isolating basic cognitive processes
• avoid interactions b/w variables & individuals - logistic/methodological concerns
• time, space, statistical power - individual juror verdict best predictor of post-delib. (jury)
verdict
Non-experimental methodologies of studying jurors?
Limited
– contempt of court & accessing jurors
e.g., post-event questionnaires
– influence of deliberation/social variables
– memory/social desirability/self-report issues
experimental methodologies of studying jurors?
Mock-juror simulations
• brief written, audio, video scenarios (w/ expt manipulation)
– jurors assess testimonial credibility, defendant culpability, & deliver verdict
• guilty/not guilty verdict vs. rating scale (e.g., likely guilt)
Good control, but difficulties w/ realism
– nature of materials (complexity, instructions, etc.)
– juror motivation
– no deliberation
types of evidence that jurors like?
E/W evidence
- not good at identifying quality
Witness confidence
- not sensitive to presence of factors that can sway confidence
Consistency of testimony
- no sensitivity to nature of memory
Consistency of case/corroboration
- no sensitivity to co-witness conformity, misinformation etc
Expert testimony
- not sensitive to variations to reliability of source
Confessions
Juror decision making: non-evidential influences
attractiveness, SES, gender
defendant race
pre-trial publicity
attractiveness, SES, gender influence on juror decision making?
less/more likely to be decided guilty
interacts w/ crime type
defendant race influence on juror decision making?
- interacts w/ crime type/stereotype
- interacts w/ salience of race
pre-trial publicity influence on juror decision making?
– negative PTP leads to inc. guilty verdicts
– distorts information processing (e.g., confirmation bias)
Relative influence of evidential and non-evidential information
depends on?
level of processing
Levels of processing?
Systematic (or central route) processing:
• detailed & analytical processing - careful analysis of relevant information
Heuristic (or peripheral route) processing:
• processing guided by jurors’ intuitive theories – lacks the
cognitive effort associated with systematic processing
Level of processing depends on?
- motivation & ability – SP is time consuming, demanding etc.
- context – availability & perceived reliability of heuristics
- task complexity, time restrictions etc.
Can SP & HP co-exist?
- SP can attenuate HP (e.g., unambiguous testimony)
* HP can bias SP (if SP leads to insufficient confidence)
Stereotypes of jurors influence?
jurors’ stereotypes provide influential heuristics
how do jurors synthesise complex evidence into a verdict?
2 classes of model: formal vs. story models
formal (mathematical) models
Juror accumulates evidence until decision criterion for verdict reached
– real-time accumulation
– weighting of evidence
story model
Jurors impose overall structure on the evidence to make sense
– active, constructive process
– coverage, coherence, uniqueness
– PTP influences, confirmation bias etc.
3 basic processes of story model?
3 basic processes:
• integration & evaluation
• learn verdict definition (effects of prior (mis)conceptions, complexity, etc)
• match verdict to story (decide)
- Integration and evaluation stage of SM?
Jurors have to use 3 types of knowledge
- evidence from trial (not usually in chronological order, has to make causal inferences)
- personal knowledge about similar events (diff jurors = diff stories)
- expectations about the nature of stories
- – coverage
- – coherence
- – uniqueness
- Learn verdicts stage of SM)
Learn Verdict categories
- toward the end, instructions from judge (usually not interpretable by lay person)
- Decision stage of SM?
Make a decision
- consider diff stories (which is accepted)
- match the accepted story against verdict options
- choose the verdict that matches the accepted story
Increased ambiguity results in?
Increased HP which leads to increased influence of non-evidential factors
What is confirmation bias?
A preference for information that confirms, rather than disconfirms an already existing belief and proneness towards belief-consistent interpretations of ambiguous evidence
- subconscious naturally occurring influence
Confirmation bias effects?
- selective attention to information
- focus on supporting evidence that confirms your idea/story - information processing
- less critical of ‘supporting’ evidence
- mre critical of ‘contradictory’ evidence - attribution tendencies
- interpretations of ambiguous evidence to confirm beliefs
- consideration of alternative explanations
