Reaching a verdict

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  • Created by: Beth
  • Created on: 17-12-13 21:57

Persuading a Jury - Order of testimony

Background:

Murdocks study on the serial position effect found that participants recall the words from the beginning of the list - primacy effect. So jurors may only remember the opening statement.

Aim:

 to investigate wether story order evidence are the true causes of the final decisions and how the confidence in these decisions is affected.

Method:

lab- 130pps from northwestern & chicago university. 4 conditions, they all listened to tape of a stimulus trial & and answered written questions and decide on a verdict and their confidence. In the story order condition evidence was in natural order and in witness order it was ordered closest to the original trial.

Results:

shows that story order give desired verdict

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Persuading a Jury - Order of testimony

Evaluation:

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Persuading a Jury - Persuasion

Background:

Expert witnesses can be considered to be very persuasive in a court room, an expert witness is a witness who by education, training, skill or experience is believed to have specialised kowlegde in a certain field beyond the average person.

Aim:

To investigate the influence on jurors of expert testimonyabout eyewitness identification.

Method:

lab, ex 1 - 240 uni washington, ex 2 - 120 uni washington. EX 1 - 4 conditions 1/2 read expert terminology (defence) 1/2 didnt. EX 2 - read violent version, groups of 6 & deliberated for group verdict. 1/2 read expert testimony.

Results:

EX1 - expert testimoney reduced guilty verdicts. EX2 - Expert testimony lowered coviction rate and increased time spent discussing.

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Persuading a Jury - Persuasion

Evaluation:

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Persuading a Jury - Inadmissible testimony

Background:

Inadmissible evidence - not allowed to say in court, gossip, prior convictions & improper evidence. In the UK if inadmissible evidence is presented in court the jugde must outrule it and tell the jury to ignore it.

Aim:

To investigate the influence on jurors of testimony ruled inadmissible by a judge

Method:

lab,236- ball state uni.Pps listen to a tape trial where a previous convistion is raised & defence objects. There are 4 conditions, 1- jugde allows, 2- legal explantion, 3 - no explantion and a contol with no iadmissible evidence.

Results:

No explantion allowed the evidence to be ignored, the legal explantion made the evidence harder to ignore and there was a higher conviction rate.

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Persuading a Jury - Inadmissible testimony

Evaluation:

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Witness Appeal - Attractiveness of the defendent

Background:

The halo effect - assume that attriveness = positive qualities e.g. intelligence. Asch's study showed that a positive halo of pleasant characterists is imagined when one favourable characteristic is know about an individual.

Aim:

To investigate using a mock trial simulation the effects of physical attractiveness of the defendant and the plaintiff on jury decision- making.

Method:

lab, 74 F & 71 M east Cali uni - pps read a mock trial of sexual harassment and shown photos (1-9 attractiveness) reach a verdict and rate on bipolar scales.

Results:

Physically attractive defendents and victims got the desired verdict and were rated possitively.

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Witness Appeal - Attractiveness of the defendent

Evaluation:

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Witness Appeal - Witness confidence

Background:

Brandon Garrett identified that faulty eye witness testimony as the leading cause of conviction. 200 exonerated prisoners -79% convicted by eye witness testimony. Witnesses are considered more credible because of their confidence.

Aim:

To examine confidence that jurors might consider when evaluating eyewitness identification evidence.

Method:

lab, 129 Wisconson pps.Pps watched a videotape trial involving eyewitnesses and they had to decide on a verdict (questionaire) 10 iv's including witness confidence (100 or 80% confident)

Results:

Witness confidence was the only iv that showed a significant statistal difference.

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Witness Appeal - Witness confidence

Evaluation:

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Witness Appeal - Effect of shields and videotape o

Background:

In a lot of cases a child is the only witness, this causes difficulties like; distress, suggestibility 7 legal requirements. One solution is the use of a videotape or a screen, the screen is so the child cant see the defendentbut they can see the child. Credivility inflation - more believable, child is not distressed, credibilty deflation - seen as unrelaible.

Aim:

To investigate if they increase the liklihood of a guilty verdict and to investigate if there is credibility iflation or deflation.

Method:

300 psy studens - taped mock trial, 3 groups (100). 3 conditions, 1 - child in full view, 2 - screen, 3 - videolink. And then gave a verdict

Results:

No significant differences between verdicts in any condition

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Witness Appeal - Effect of shields and videotape o

Evaluation:

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Reaching a verdict - Stages and influences in deci

Background:

Juries often elect a foreman who acts as a leader, according to Hastie usaully males of high social class who sit at the end or middle f the table are more likely to be chosen. Juries often take a straw poll, they started deliberations early (verbal go arounds or secret ballots) 

Aim:

To examine the stages a jury goes through to reach a verdict

3 stages:

1 (orientation period)- relaxed open discussion, questions and facts are explored.2 (open confrontation)- turns fiecre, differet interpretations arise . Focuses on small details pressure from majorities. 3 (reconcilliation)-  once a group decision has been made pressure drops,conflict is smoothed out.

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Reaching a verdict - Stages and influences in deci

Evaluation:

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Reaching a verdict -Majority influence

Background:

Arthur Jeness showed conformity with beans in a big jar,people tended to shift their estimates closer to those on the list (fake pps). Conformity - social influence from exposure to majority which usually leads to compliance. Informational influence - is motivated by a desire to be correct. Normative influence - is motivated by social approval.

Aim:

To investigate the effects of conformity to a majority when the task is ambiguous

Method:

lab - pps sat with 6 confederates who gave blatently incorrect answers when asked which line matched, in length the original line. 

Results:

conformed 1/3 occasions or 32%

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Reaching a verdict -Majority influence

Evaluation:

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Reaching a verdict - Minority influence

Background:

Asch's experiments proved the power of minority, Moscovici proved that this power is only when the minority behave consistently, shown in his study where only the condition where the confederates jugded the colour of the slides to be green consistently. 

Aim:

To investigate the influence of perceived autonomy (choosing where to sit) and the consistency on minority influence

Method:

lab, 5 groups of pps (1 was a confederate) - pps made an indivdual decision about the compensation, condition A - confederate sits at the head of the table & B - experimenter tells everyone where to sit. A group decision is made about the compensation.

Results:

Minority had a higher influence in condition A

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Reaching a verdict - Minority influence

Evaluation:

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