A2 psychology ; group A . PY 4 juries essay by rachel Hume

discuss the decision making of juries

rachellhume — 2013-10-03 08:43:47 UTC

25 marks

PY4 - forensic psychology

rachellhume — 2013-10-04 19:47:09 UTC

Majority Influence

2013-10-07 13:30:31 UTC

The majority influence is a form of social influence that
results from exposure to the majority position and leads to compliance with
that position. It is the tendency for people to adopt the behaviour, attitudes
and values of other members of a reference group. This relates to Asch (1995)
in his study of conformity which showed that a single participant in a group of
confederates would conform to the majority view. Pressure to conform may come
from desire to be accepted or respected by the group. Smith and Mackie came up
with several reasons why the majority view is so influential, these include:
varied opinions as the majority can express their opinion in a variety of ways,
deeper discussions as shared ideas are discussed for longer than individual
ideas and greater confidence as most people sharing their views allows members
of the majority to sound more forceful and convincing. Hinsz and Davis
presented groups with differing numbers of arguments and found that the more
varied the opinion the greater the shift in opinion. Stasser and Stewart shared
a piece of information with the majority of the group and some to a single
individual and instructed to discuss the information the participants focused
on the shared information rather than the non-shared information. Also knowing
most people are on your side allows majority group members to be more
forthright and argumentative which explains why groups of people seem more
confident, logical and intelligent.

Evaluation points

Majority influence has been found to have a much stronger
impact on verdict decisions than the minority influence. However, a problem
with this is that the decision rule has been shown to moderate the relative
impact of majority influence. Nemeth 1987 found that the majority influence to prevail
more quickly when non-unanimous decision rule was employed rather than a unanimous
decision rule. Majority influence can also be culture biased if there are
certain ethnicities in the jury. This may affect the decision made as these
types of cultures may have different beliefs. The most important factor is that majority influence
made their own decision rather than listening to the evidence.During
juries there can be many extraneous variables because individuals are
influenced by the outside world. It is hard to control these variables and therefore
they could affect the final verdict. The jury also use volunteers which differs from people who are selected as volunteers want to be there whereas people who are selected may not neccessarily want to. The jury may also be subjected to demand characterstics because they may want to agree with desired decision. So, if they feel the decision is socially right, they may choose it even if they would naturally go with the other decision.

For example when Asch's participants where asked why they made a certain choice, they concluded that they did not want to spoil the results.

Just world theory

lorettagyamfi — 2013-10-07 13:35:27 UTC

The Just World theory suggests that the amount of
compensation a victim will receive relates directly to the perceived innocence
of the victim. Foley & Pigott (2000) conducted an experiment testing this
theory. They presented 2 computerised photographs of the same rape victim (but
one was young, whilst the other was considerably older) to a mock jury. Foley
& Pigott measured the responsibility attributed to the plaintiff and the
amount of monetary damages awarded to them. They found that even though the
younger and older plaintiffs were held equally responsible, older women were
awarded more monetary damages. The main problem with this theory is the fact
that it can’t be applied to criminal courts – compensation can only be given in
a civil court. Therefore we can’t be certain that a jury’s decision is
influenced by this theory. A methodological issue with this study is the fact
that it’s using a mock jury. This first of all means that demand characteristics
may affect the validity of the study and therefore there may be inaccuracies in
the study. The mock jury also lackecological validity because they aren't a real jury, this means that this study
may not be easily generalizable to real life settings and how jury’s really
judge cases.

Ethnicity in juries

imogen_murray2 — 2013-10-07 13:36:36 UTC

It can be hard to test the reliability of the juror’s decisions and as it has been found that the ethnicity of the defendant can bias the decision of the jury due to social stereotypes. For example a study by Duncan (1976) looked at the effect of stereotypes on perception. He asked a group of white participants to watch a video of a disagreement between two people – one the assailant and one the victim. Duncan showed four different groups four different videos which showed combinations of either black or white assailants or victims. The participants were then asked whether the behaviour of the assailant could be described as‘playing around’ or ‘violent’. The results showed that 70% of the participants described the assailant as violent when they were black and only 13% chose violent when the assailant was white. The attribution of violence was highest when the assailant and victim were both black, but lowest when they were both white. This study therefore reflects that the colour of someone’s skin highly influences a person’s judgement of whether they are violent, which is shown more in black people as, in America, they are considered the minority race compared to white people. However this study could be argued as invalid as the tapes were seen by different groups of participants, and not just one group, and therefore the participants were more likely to be biased as they did not have the opportunity to review the different pairs of ethnicities. Also some may also argue that this study does not conclude that people are more likely to stereotype as it can be seen as too simplistic. Other ethnicities, such as Asian or European, are not considered, and so the results cannot be generalised to other ethnicities when they have not be tested. It also does not test whether this could affect a jurors decision as there is no evidence of the particpants deciding as a group which would normally happen, and so the setting may have affected their judgement. A contradicting study by Mazzella and Feingold (1994) found no overall effect of ethnicity on mock jury decisions of guilt or innocence. This therefore reflects an inconsistency with the rate of stereotyping of different ethnic groups. However Mazzella and Feingold found that punishment was affected by ethnic groups. This is supported by Johnson (2002) who found that a group of white participants made more situational attributions about a white defendant and suggested more lenient punishments than for black defendants. This therefore shows that ethnicity can affect someone’s decision of punishment, however this could be biased as the participants were all white, and so may feel more compassion towards someone of their own ethnicity. However juries, in general, are purposely made up of a mixture of ethnicities to refuce bias towards their decision.

REMEMBER TO REVISE FOR YOUR TIMED ESSAY ON TUESDAY THE 15TH!

2013-10-07 13:47:21 UTC

Minority influence

2013-10-07 13:49:53 UTC

Minority influence is a form of social influence where a persuasive minority exerts
pressure to change the attitudes, beliefs or behaviour of the majority. A study
that shows this it can be successful is Moscovicis’ (1969) study where he asked
a group of students to judge the colour of a series of slides. All 36 slides
were the same colour but shown at varying light intensities. In two of these
conditions he wanted to study the minority, the consistent minority showed that
10% of participants judged the slides to be green compared to only 1% in the
inconsistent minority condition. This suggests that the minority can influence
the majority but only when the minority is consistent. However, 90% didn’t go
with the minority so there are only a small proportion of participants that are
persuaded. An additional problem with this study is that judging colours of
slides is very different to judging guilt and innocence so it can’t be
generalised to court room situation.

Attribution theory can explain the effect of minority influence as the behaviour of the minority is seen by the majority to be intelligent and powerful so the majority may change their view. Nemeth replicated Moscovicis study but found that
‘patterning’ is more important than consistency in determining minority
influence and where confederates were inconsistent it was related to the
property of the stimulus. Studies like these can be applied jury deliberations
but a study Nemeth and Watchler was carried as a mock trial is more relevant. It found that if the confederate is told whereto sit then he is perceived as more autonomous and so has more influence over the majority. On the other hand, they know they are not a real jury so they will act differently to real jurors. Also, it would produce demand characteristics as they know they are being studied so the results wouldn’t be valid.

key question to consider

rachellhume — 2013-10-07 13:50:14 UTC

- are juries an effective means of deciding on the guilt or innocence of a defendant ?

- are juries capable of makng unbiased decisions ?

Size of Jury

imogen_murray2 — 2013-10-07 13:51:26 UTC

It is evident that there are significant differences between
the way in which small and large juries operate. A larger 12 person jury is
shown to be more effective than a smaller 6 person jury as larger juries tend
to be fairer. The reason for this was outlined by Saks (1977) who summarised
numerous advantages for larger juries:

Firstly they would be more representative of the
population.
They spend a greater proportion of time in
discussion and deliberation.
They show more accurate recall of the testimony.
The pressure to conform in not as extreme in
lager groups as there are more mixed views and less likely to include an overpowering
individual.
Lager juries tend to produce more consistent
verdict.

Therefore smaller juries may save money but questions are
raised on their effectiveness.

In the case of Williams and Florida (1970) Williams protested
his conviction based on the fact there was only 6 people in the jury. The Supreme
Court however, refused to overturn the verdict on the basis that a 6 person
jury could be just as effective as a 12 person jury, and such that 6 person
juries are allowed in some states of America.

Attractiveness of Defendant

2013-10-07 13:57:18 UTC

Despite what many may think, the relationship between physical appearance and judgement of a person’s health and character still
affects us today. Research has found that defendants may be more likely to be found innocent or get a lesser punishment if they are attractive. In 1972 Dion,
Berscheid and Walster found that people were more positive towards attractive people. A group of people were asked to look at photographs of people and rate
their personality and characteristics. The results showed they were more favourable towards attractive people supporting the ‘what is beautiful is also
good’ stereotype. This piece of research may not be completely accurate because it isn’t ecologically valid. If you were shown a picture of someone then your
reaction to how bad the crime is would be completely different to what it would be like in a real jury situation. Stewart (1980) found that judges were less
willing to imprison attractive people and Downs and Lyon (1991) found that judges imposed lower fines on attractive defendants. Castellow et al (1990)
tried to test whether juries make judgements about the personality and character of the defendant based on their appearance. Mock juries were asked to
read a trial summary about a 23-year-old secretary receptionist who had accused her male employer of sexual harassment. She had accused him of sexual remarks
and trying to fondle with her. The different photo combinations would hopefully test the jury’s decision. The first image had an attractive plaintiff and
attractive defendant and in this case 71% of the jury found them guilty. The second was an attractive plaintiff and unattractive defendant and in this case
83% of the jury called them guilty. Then the third had an unattractive plaintiff and attractive defendant and this had 41% of the jury found them
guilty. The last photo had an unattractive plaintiff and an unattractive defendant and this showed 69% of the jury found them guilty. Whilst this
research suggests that attractiveness influences the results of a jury decision we cannot be sure that these results are completely valid because they may have
been affected by demand characteristics. As they are all in an experiment condition they may be acting in a way they think is right because they want to
please the experimenter. Also it could be suggested that jurors can be more gender bias, as female jurors treated attractive defendants significantly more
leniently than unattractive ones, but the reverse was true for the male jurors. Conformity may also have an effect on the results because one person may not
like the look of a defendant and the rest may follow their decision.