Psychology - juries essay by rachel Hume

Discuss decision making of juries (25 marks)

rachellhume — 2013-10-02 10:57:34 UTC

additional points to consider :

rachellhume — 2013-10-02 10:57:59 UTC

- the size of the jury ( UK = 12)

- wether unanimous or majority verdict is needed

(UK can have 10 to 2 majority verdict)

So, it is clear that there are a number of issues that can affect juror’s decision making – how can we try and counter this bias?

rachellhume — 2013-10-04 13:57:28 UTC

There are several methods in place to safeguard against the biasing effects of certain factors. Voir dire is one of the commonest approaches used by the court system and involves the exclusion of any juror’s who are identified as impartial. This would obviously reduce the effects on jury decision making as it should help to remove anyone who may have any preconceived notions or perhaps stereotypes as to the defendant’s guilt or innocence. However there is research to suggest that the confidence in this approach is misplaced as any assertions made by prospective jurors are based on their own measure of impartiality and so if they do not think they are biased but they are no improvement had been made?

Ethnicity of defendants:

2013-10-04 13:58:17 UTC

-Stereotypes based on ethnicity affect juror’s decisions. Duncan varied the ethnic group of the perpetrator and victim in the videotape of a potentially violent situation. Participants judged and ambiguous shove as more violent when performed by a black than a white individual. In a mock jury situation, Pfeifer and Ogloff found that white participants were more likely to judge a black than a white defendant guilty in a rape case, especially when the victim was white. Interestingly when asked to justify the guilty verdict, the effect of ethnic group on the verdict disappeared. This suggests that the differences were due to stereotyping. Judgements of ethnic minorities are similarly biased in real trials. Baldwin and McConville found that black defendants were more likely to be wrongly convicted than wrongly acquitted and this was the case even if the members of the jury were black. Contradictory evidence: Not all studies have found that ethnicity affects jury decisions. For example, Mazzella and Feingold found no overall effect of ethnicity on mock jury decisions of guilt or innocence, although punishment was affected by ethnic group. The effect of ethnic group varies with the crime. Gordon et al found that longer sentences were given to black than white defendants convicted of burglary but the reverse was true for fraud.

There are so many variables affecting the decisions of juries that it can be very hard to isolate these in research. Research into the influence of race and socio-economic status has revealed an interaction between jury-defendant similarity and the strength of evidence; when evidence is weak jurors who display the same characteristics as the defendant tend to be lenient in sentencing, but when evidence is strong, jurors tend to be harsher.

rachellhume — 2013-10-04 14:00:36 UTC

Another method used is judicial admonitions where judges direct the jurors to base their verdict decision on the information formally admitted into evidence and to disregard any non-evidentiary information, however this instruction again does not always effectively lead to elimination of juror’s use of inadmissible evidence. It was found that receiving judicial admonitions before a trial’s start as well as after had the greatest chance of preventing juror’s from using this evidence

Gender of defendants: Juries are usually more biased towards female defendants because they are viewed to be more vulnerable.

2013-10-04 14:01:53 UTC

rachellhume — 2013-10-04 14:02:18 UTC

The third commonly used procedure is jury deliberation which might prevent bias due to only being open to one interpretation of events – however the effect of deliberation we have seen can also lead to other types of social influences. So, while there are procedures in place to protect against bias, none of these appear to be very effective and so it is clear that there are still a number of factors that influence juror’s decision making.

psychological approaches to juries

rachellhume — 2013-10-04 14:04:10 UTC

- socal inteaction ( conformity / innovation) = Social psychology

( could discuss the limits of social psychology)

- characterisitics of the defendant = cognitive psychoogy

(cognitive bias / schema theory)

Majority Influence

2013-10-04 14:04:36 UTC

Majority influence relates to Asch’s study (1995) of conformity.
Asch’s study showed that when a single participant was in a group of
confederates they would generally conform to the majority view.

Smith and Mackie (1995) suggested that there were several
reasons why majority influence can have such a large influence:

Varied opinions – A larger group will express opinions
in a variety of ways. This will then produce deeper processing in the
discussions.

Deeper discussions – Ideas held by individuals are not
discussed for as long as ideas that are shared by several people.

Greater confidence – People who sound their opinions
with greater confidence and with more force are more likely to sound more
convincing and so will be more likely to make other agree with them.

Varied opinions - in an experimental study Hinsz
and Davies (1984) presented groups with differing numbers of arguments. The
more varied the opinions the grater the shift in opinion.

Deeper Discussions –Stasser and Stewart
(1992) devised a situation in which some information was shared within the
majority of a group and some given only to a single individual. Even when
instructed to discuss al the information, the participants focussed almost
entirely on the shared information and virtually excluded all the non-shared
information.

Greater Confidence – Knowing most people are on your
side allows majority group members to be more forthright and argumentative, so
their views are more compelling. This may also explain why majority grouped
members seem more confident logical and intelligent than those in a minority.

Dangers of discussion - Myers and Kaplan (1976) tested a
group polarisation in mock juries using hypothetical traffic cases that were
either higher of lower guilt. After discussing low guilt cases the juries erred
towards innocence and recommended more lenient punishment. In the high guilt
cases they became harsher. These differences did not arise if the cases were
not discussed.

PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS

faithjenks1 — 2013-10-04 14:05:04 UTC

Evidence – Beauty is linked with
innocence. Saladin showed participants photographs of men and asked them to judge how capable of committing murder and arm robbery. Attractive men were considered less likely to commit the crime. Same pattern shown with sentencing, showed by Desantis and Kayson who found juries gave harsher punishments for burglary
for unattractive defendants. This Halo effect is strongest for women accused for serial but not fatal crimes (Quigley). As well as this female jurors are more swayed by effects of physical attractiveness than male jurors.

Evaluation – Effects of physical attractiveness also vary with crime. Supporting evidence – Sigall and Ostrove, asked participants to
suggest prison terms for defendant based on pics. Unattractive defendants were given longer sentences for burglary however, reverse was found true for fraud. If attractiveness effect used for criminal gain, it fails. Abwender and Hough studied both attractiveness and gender in an experiment in which participants
rated guilt in a scenario of a fatal road accident. Female jurors treated
attractive defendants significantly more leaniently than unattractive one, the revers is true for male jurors. However this theory is criticised in court as judgement for guilt/innocene is absolute showing the situation is not entirely realistic. Also an issue with ethnocentrism about the definition of attractiveness as there are different views in different cultures. It is also subjective, as how do you measure attractiveness? It is measured by mock juries which is not realistic and therefore cannot be generalised.

Belief of Just World (BJW);

2013-10-04 14:05:27 UTC

-The results of Piggott’s study show that there is no significant difference in the amount of responsibility attributed to women based on their age. Usually an older more respectable victim would be considered to be less responsible than a younger one. Participants awarded monetary damages to the older women than they did to the younger ones. This supports the just world hypothesis which is when an unjust event occurs there are several ways in a just world can be restored for example when a person is raped people often ascribe responsibility to them for what happened otherwise the event is to unfair to fit comfortably to the views of the world.

$W@G

2013-10-04 14:08:07 UTC

Minority influence Contrary to the idea of conformity to a majority, a minority can sometimes change the opinion of a group.

2013-10-04 14:09:54 UTC

-Minority influence may be even more effective than majority influence because it makes members of the majority question their opinion (Nemeth, 1977). What colour is it? Moscovici et al (1969) demonstrated the power of the minority. Each individual in a group consisting of 4 participants 2 confederates judged the colours of blue and green slides. If the confederates incorrectly said ‘green’ most of the time, participants also answered wrongly on 1.25% of trials. However, if both confederates consistently incorrectly said ‘green’, the error rate of the real participants rose to 8.42% showing that a consistent minority can influence the wider group. Moscovici suggests that individuals in juries can change the majority view when they have a long deliberation period. However, they need to be consistent in their opinions and willing to discuss why they disagree with the majority rather than be rigid.

ALISON CLAIRE

2013-10-09 08:44:39 UTC