Drawing_Upon_Your_Knowledge_of_Theories_and_Research_in_Person_Perception,_Discuss_Some_Factors_That_May_Influence_Juries_in_Courtroom_Trials.

Drawing upon your knowledge of theories and research in person perception, discuss some factors that may influence juries in courtroom trials. For many years social psychologists have had a great interest in how human beings process information, how they make inferences and decisions about the behaviours and motivations of others, and also how events are interpreted and perceived. According to Nisbett & Ross, (1985, cited in Atkinson, Atkinson, Smith, Bem & Hilgard, 1990) people do this rather like informal scientists. Data is observed and collected, judgements are then made about what information fits with other existing information and finally an attempt is made to evaluate the cause of an event happening. These informal theories according to Atkinson et al, (1990) work quite well most of the time, however they contain a number of systematic errors and the resulting social judgement can sometimes be faulty. The authors go on to note that these informal theories are often found to interfere with accurate information processing. Interference from pre-existing information can affect the way that new information is shaped or perceived, it can also distort the estimates of what goes with what, and it can bias the evaluations of cause and effect. In everyday life, errors such as these do not have great importance. However one area where accurate information processing is highly important is in a jury situation. It is the role of a juror to listen to evidence and evaluate the facts to determine whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty of the crime with which they have been charged. However, this is an unfamiliar role for most people and authors such as Aronson, Wilson & Arket, (1994) have suggested that when people find themselves in an unfamiliar situation such as this, they may elicit the use of pre-existing schemas and scripts in order to make sense of the situation which they find themselves in. Heuristics such as this are a frequently used common sense method by which people make decisions. These judgemental shortcuts allow people to make efficient, but not necessarily accurate decisions. The schemas and scripts which people hold in their memory about others, events or objects, have been built up over time and may stem from cultural knowledge, past experiences or can even be absorbed from the media. (Woods, 2003). Bottoms & Davis, (2004) have shown that although tools such as these are extremely useful for processing large or new kinds of information, they can also produce the effect of stereotyping individuals into a pre-existing category which is actually quite far removed from what a person is really like. In their research of this concept, Bottoms & Davis, (2004) aimed to establish if a child victim of sexual abuse would be ascribed differing degrees of personal responsibility for initiating the abuse, dependant on their skin colour. This type of stereotypical bias has considerable implications in a jury situation. However, another serious type of bias which can also have a tremendous influence on a juror can stem from exposure to negative pre-trial information. Festinger (1957, cited in Atkinson et al, 1990) has noted that cognitive dissonance can be aroused in a person when they have already made a decision about something and are then, subsequently required to re-evaluate their initial decision. According to Festinger’s theory, people can distort the evaluation of new information in favour of their initial decision in order to reduce the amount of dissonance. Furthermore, the theory suggests that when an opinion has been formed it can be very resistant to change even when shown to be incorrect. This was investigated by Hope, Memon & McGeorge (2002) in a mock jury situation, who exposed half of their participants to negative pre-trial publicity, and a control group who were not. This research supported Festingers (1957) cognitive dissonance theory and found that jurors who had been exposed to the negative information were more likely to submit a guilty verdict, even when they were faced with expert witness testimony which supported the defendant’s innocence. However, as Constabile & Klein, (2004) have suggested, there are other types of influences that could be equally detrimental to a defendant. These researchers maintain that the order in which the evidence is presented can have a powerful influence on a juror’s decision. Murdock, (1962, cited in Atkinson et al, 1990) demonstrated the idea that words which were presented to participants in the first few places on a list and also the words in the last few places, were the ones which most people remembered. This primacy and recency effect upon the order in which evidence is presented to mock jurors, has been investigated recently by Costabile & Klein, (2004). It was found by these researchers that when the most crucial evidence was presented last in the case, a guilty verdict was more likely. However, research by Pennington, (1982) has shown that the primacy effect had a greater impact. Many researchers have argued over this issue and as Kerstholt & Jackson (1998) have suggested, the recency effect may have a greater influence in a jury situation because early in the trail, jurors are not only trying to evaluate the evidence, but also forming impressions at the same time. The impression jurors have of the accused can be influenced by many factors, and as Memon & Shuman, (1998) have shown, this includes their perceptions of witnesses, especially ones who are perceived to have expertise on the matter in hand. Bickman, (1974) cited in Aronson et al, (1994, p256) has noted that “typically, the more expertise or knowledge a person has, the more valuable he or she will be as a guide in an ambiguous situation”. Further from this, Schuller & Cripps (1998) have noted that expert witnesses can not only testify to specific facts, but also express an opinion about those facts. However, what is interesting about the influences that expert testimony has upon a juror is that the testimony can be biased by the gender of the expert. (Schuller & Cripps, 1998). These researchers conducted a mock trial centred on the murder of a husband, who it had been alleged had continually battered his wife, (the female defendant). The results of this indicated that a female expert witness, (a social worker) was more effective in presenting evidence for the battered women syndrome than a male expert. Following from this Memon & Shuman, (1998) also tried to establish how influential an expert witness would be if he/she was not of the gender normally associated with a certain occupation. Interestingly, the results of this study revealed that if the expert’s occupation was inconsistent with the juror’s expectations of that occupation, the expert witness did not have quite the same influences. Therefore the following discussion shall raise the above issues which can sway jurors in a courtroom trial, and it shall be argued that if potential jurors were made aware of these influences they may adjust their cognitive processes accordingly. Theories of stereotyping and prejudice suggest that schemas about out-groups often include negative information that leads to unfavourable evaluations. (Allport, 1958, cited in Woods, 2003) This phenomenon was investigated recently by Bottoms & Davis (2004) who set out to measure mock juror’s perceptions of the amount of responsibility they attributed to the 13 year old child victim of an alleged sexual abuse by a white male teacher. The three sets of jurors were White and each read the case with only the child’s name changed: Jessica Kelly, (White child) Tonya Jones, (Black child) and Maria Gonzalez (Hispanic child). It was found that the juror’s perceptions of the amount of responsibility the victim held for the abuse having happened to her differed significantly as a function of her race. Comparisons revealed that the white victim was perceived to be less responsible for her abuse than either the Black victim or the Hispanic Victim. Bottoms & Davis (2004) hypothesised that this would be the outcome of their investigation because they believed that White Americans tend to stereotype Black and Hispanic children as being more sexually promiscuous at a younger age than white children. Hayes, (2000) has argued that this kind of stereotyping is a judgemental heuristic that is placed upon a person who is perceived as being different, merely because of the colour of their skin. Undoubtedly, this study has demonstrated clear racial prejudice, but it could be argued that it would have been more interesting if the abused female child had been presented to another set of white jurors as a male child. This variation may have shed some more light on whether or not the juror’s perceptions of racial promiscuity were based, to any extent, on the gender of the child. However, juror perceptions as Hope, Memon & McGeorge, (2002) have demonstrated, are not only based on what happens during a trial, they can also be obtained before the trial even starts. Hope, Memon & McGeorge, (2002) have noted that prejudicial pre-trial publicity is another source which can elicit a biased response from jurors. These researchers presented mock jurors with newspaper articles about a man who had been arrested on suspicion of shooting his wife at their home. The article presented the defendant in a negative light but did not include any comments about previous misbehaviours or convictions and other family members were shown to have declined to comment. Negative comments however, were made about the accused from neighbours which included that he was unemployed, a bully and had few friends in the area. All participants were instructed to find the defendant either guilty or not guilty of murder. Expert testimony was provided at the start of the trial which strongly suggested that the defendant’s wife had committed suicide. Results of this study showed that significantly more, “guilty of murder” verdicts were submitted by the participants who had been exposed to the negative pre-trial publicity than those who had not been exposed to it. Hope, Memon & McGeorge, (2002) argued from this that the participants who were exposed to negative pre-trial publicity engaged in alternative processing of trial evidence than those who had not been exposed to it. This alternative processing may not only have been influenced by the negative pre-trial publicity argued Hope, Memon & McGeorge, (2002), it could also have been influenced by the amount of cognitive dissonance the expert testimony had caused to jurors after they had made their initial evaluations of the defendants character. Although this study has shown that negative pre-trial publicity can be detrimental to an innocent person, it would have been more interesting if the expert witness had given his/her evidence at the end of the trial to another set of jurors who had been also been exposed to the same negative publicity. This variation would have allowed the researchers to compare and contrast the primacy and recency effects of such negative publicity. Costabile & Klein, (2004) investigated whether the order that the evidence was presented in, to a jury, had any influence on the verdict they would eventually render to the defendant. They predicted in conjunction with Lichtenstein & Skrull’s, (1987) cited in Woods, (2003) model that they would find recency effects. Their study included the use of critical evidence (a taped phone confession) which was heard by four sets of mock jurors, either early or late in the trial. Evidence presented last, according to Costabile & Klein, (2004) is disproportionately recalled and has greater impact. Results from this study suggested that a guilty verdict was more likely when the incriminating evidence was presented late in the trial, showing the recency effect was mediated by the juror’s memory. However, literature on order effects of juror’s decisions is mixed with some researchers such as Pennington (1982) finding primacy effects and others including Wilson, (1971, cited in Hayes, 2000) finding the same as Costabile & Klein, (2004) that recency effects have a greater impact. Kerstholt & Jackson (1998) have made quite an interesting argument about these mixed findings. They suggest that in addition to trying to understand the testimony early in the trial, a juror may also be trying to create a coherent impression of the defendant, thereby reducing the amount of attention he/she can actually pay to the evidence being presented at this stage. Arguably, trying to form an impression such as this may motivate the juror pay more attention to the accused at this stage, which then has the effect of reducing the processing of any evidence presented at this point. However, it has been noted by Memon & Schuman, (1998) that one area where jurors do pay close attention to is the testimony of an expert witness. Expert witnesses have been shown to be quite influential on the minds of a juror. (Bickman, 1974, cited in Aronson et al, and Schuller & Cripps,1998). Subsequently, Memon & Schuman, (1998) investigated this idea with one interesting difference. These researchers hypothesised that using an expert witness who was not of the gender normally associated with a specific occupation, would not have as much influence on a jury. Their mock trial centred on the allegation that a female had suffered sever facial lacerations after being involved in car accident because of a faulty clip on her seat belt. Memon & Schuman, (1998) employed the use of 30 juries, equally consisting of males and females. Half were then exposed to expert testimony by a female car engineer and half exposed to testimony by a male engineer. Results of this study showed that the female’s expert testimony was not significantly undervalued because of her gender. Memon & Schuman, (1998) argued from this, that consistent with what Schuller & Cripps, (1998) had found, expert testimony could be attributed a degree of “specialist insight” if the occupation of the expert was consistent with the juror’s expectations of their gender. However, it could also be argued form this that both the male and female juror’s felt a certain amount of sympathy for the female who had suffered facial injury making their results more inconclusive than Schuller and Cripps, (1998) had shown. In conclusion, it can be clearly seen that jurors, far from being objective, are deeply affected by internal and external influences such as stereotypes, race, gender, pre-trial publicity and witness expertise. However, stereotypes and biases are natural in the sense that people’s perception will always be influenced by past experiences, their socialisation and mental heuristics. A study of racial prejudice was highlighted and was argued that it was unclear if perceptions of racial promiscuity may also be influenced by gender. Pre-trial publicity was also discussed and it was suggested that cognitive dissonance may be aroused if the evidence is not consistent with initial pre-trial evaluations of a defendant’s character. Primacy and recency effects were then suggested as being influential to jurors and it was argued that attention to evidence and the subsequent processing, may suffer interference early in the trial because the juror is also trying to form an impression of the defendant at the same time. Finally, a study was provided which proposed that expert witness testimony may be undervalued by gender expectations. Results of this study were argued to be unclear as emotions such as sympathy may be influential in certain cases. Arguably, if jurors were made aware of these types of social influences prior to undertaking their role, they may adjust their cognitive processes accordingly. However, in spite of the problems inherent in the process, and in the absence of a better process, trial by peers remains an integral part of the judicial and legal system in Great Britain today. REFERENCES Allport, G. W. (1958). The Nature of Prejudice. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Aronson, E. Wilson, T.D. & Arket, R.M. (1994) Social Psychology. The Heart and Mind. HarperCollins / NY Atkinson, R.L. Atkinson, R.C. Smith, E.E. Bem, D.J. & Hilgard, E.R. (1990) Introduction to Psychology. 10th ed. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich / London Bickman, L. (1974) The Social Power of a Uniform. Journal of applied social psychology, 4, 47-61 Bottoms, B.L. & Davis, S.L. (2004) Effects of Victim and Defendant Race on Jurors. 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(1998) Gender of an Expert Witness and Jury Verdict. Law and Psychology review: 22, 179-188 Murdock, B. B. JR. (1962) The Serial Position Effect in Free Recall. Journal of experimental psychology, 64, 482-488. 290 Nisbett, R.E. & Ross, L. (1985) Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcuts of Social Judgement. Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-hall. 683, 684, 690, 695, 719, 712 Pennington, D.C. (1982) Witnesses and their testimony. Effects of ordering on juror verdicts. Journal of applied social psychology, 12, 318-333 Schuller, R.A. & Cripps, J. (1998) Expert Evidence Pertaining to Battered Women. The Impact of Gender on expert and Timing of Testimony. Law and Human Behaviour. 22, 17-31 Wilson, W. (1971) Source Credibility and Order Effects. Psychological reports, 29, 1303-1312 Woods, B. (2003) Basics in Psychology. 2nd Edition. Hodder & Stoughton / London