Extra-legal factors and product liability: The influence of mock jurors' demographic characteristics and intuitions about the cause of an injury

Two experiments were performed to investigate the role of extra-legal factors in a simulated product liability trial. In cases where the factual evidence was identical, subjects' liability judgments varied as a function of the case-specific factor of the alleged source of the plaintiffs injury. In deciding cases differently depending on the alleged cause, subjects relied on intuitions about what injury sources are more or less likely to cause a certain kind of injury. Juror-specific factors also influenced subjects' verdicts. There was no difference between students and non-students, but race and SEC—factors that are often correlated with student status—did affect subjects' verdicts. Low-SES and minority subjects were more likely to find the defendant liable than high-SES and white subjects. The results are considered in terms of general decision-making processes, and the implications for jury selection and mock jury research are discussed.     

The “Black Sheep Effect”: Extremity of judgments towards ingroup members as a function of group identification

The present study proposes an extension to the phenomenon of ingroup favouritism, based on the hypothesis that judgments about ingroup members may be more positive or more negative than judgments about similar outgroup members. It contrasts predictions issued from the complexity-extremity hypothesis (Linville, 1982; Linville and Jones, 1980), from the ingroup favouritism hypothesis (Tajfel, 1982) and from Tesser's (1978; Millar and Tesser, 1986) attitude polarization model. Our main prediction, based on Social Identity Theory, is that judgments about both likeable and unlikeable ingroup members are more extreme than judgments about outgroup members. This phenomenon, coined the Black Sheep Effect, is viewed as due to the relevance that ingroup members'behaviour, as compared to that of outgroup members, has for the subjects' social identity. Three experiments supported our predictions. Experiment I additionally showed that inter-trait correlations were stronger for the ingroup than for the outgroup. Experiment 2 showed that the black sheep effect occurs only when the judgmental cues are relevant for the subjects' social identity, and Experiment 3 showed that levels of information about the target of the judgment were ineffective in generating judgmental extremity. Results are discussed in light of a cognitive-motivational alternative explanation to a purely cognitive interpretation of outgroup homogeneity.     

Individual judgment and group interaction: A variable perspective approach

An extension of the T. M. Ostrom and H. S. Upshaw perspective model (1968, in A. Greenwald, T. Brock, and T. Ostrom (Eds.), Psychological foundations of attitudes, New York: Academic Press) of attitudinal judgments, incorporating a subjective scale range concept, was examined in relation to the effects of group interaction on individual members' attitudinal judgments. Subjects made attitudinal judgments after reading a criminal case history and then, either individually or as members of four person groups, decided on the appropriate sentence for the criminal for two different cases. The results showed that the subjective scale range concept was useful to account for the subjects' attitudinal judgments. Further analysis showed that the group interaction provided both informational and normative influences on the individual members' judgments in different ways. These findings are discussed in terms of judgmental processes postulated by Ostrom and Upshaw.     

Identifying the relevant aspects of a problem text

Forty-nine subjects judged the relevancy of sentence parts of a word problem (the Allsports problem). Patterns of subjects' judgments suggest three problem-solving heuristics: a SETS heuristic, a TIME heuristic, and a QUESTION heuristic. Presentation of the question before the problem tends to suppress SETS and TIME heuristics. A computer program (ATTEND) is presented to simulate subjects' behavior on the Allsports problem. The program is context-sensitive in that it can change a relevance judgment upon the acquisition of further information. Averaged subject judgments and ATTEND judgments agree for 87% of the items.     

Judging risk behaviour and risk preference: The role of the evaluative connotation of risk terms

Two experiments investigate the impact of the evaluative connotation of risk terms on the judgment of risk behaviour and on risk preference. In the first experiment we focus on (1) the evaluation congruence of the risk terms with a general risk norm and (2) with subjects' individual risk preference, and its effects on the extremity of judgments of risk behaviour. In the second experiment we address (3) the effects of evaluative connotation of risk terms on risk preference. In the first experiment subjects were presented with four decision problems, each with a risky and a cautious decision option, and were required to judge options. Results showed that the judged discrepancy between the risky and cautious option was larger on scales which were evaluatively congruent with the general risk norm for that specific decision problem or with subjects' individual preference. More specificly, in decision problems for which there was considerable consensus about the risk-norm judgments were more extreme on scales which were congruent with the risk norm, in those problems lacking a clear-cut risk-norm judgments were more extreme on scales congruent with subjects' individual risk preference. In the second experiment we studied the reverse relation between the evaluative connotation of risk terms and risk preference. This experiment demonstrates that using evaluatively biased risk terms can affect risk preference. Using terms which imply a positive evaluation of risk-taking and a negative evaluation of risk avoidance led to increased risk preference, and vice versa. Results are discussed in the context of accentuation theory.     

Rarely Occurring Headaches and Rarely Occurring Blindness: Is Rarely=Rarely? The Meaning of Verbal Frequentistic Labels in Specific Medical Contexts

In three experimental studies, factors were examined which might influence the interpretation of verbal frequentistic labels in a specific context (i.e. side effects of medical drugs). In Study 1, we directly assessed subjects' numerical equivalents of three verbal labels (recommended for use by the German Federal Health Agency), which were embedded in stylized leaflets for medical drugs; we compared the estimates with those obtained in a context-free situation. The major findings were that (1) subjects' numerical equivalents for the verbal labels were clearly lower in the context condition than in the context-free situation, (2) subjects'; interpretations appeared to depend on the seriousness of the side effects, but (3) this dependency disappeared when explicit base rates were provided. In Studies 2 and 3, we indirectly examined the influence of the seriousness of the side effects, their frequency, and of the mode of expression (verbally versus numerically) by asking for risk judgments for and choices between drugs. Results of particular importance were that (1) seriousness and frequency of side effects had the same influence on judgments and choices but the mode of expression had no significant effect on either judgments or choices; (2) when subjects’ individual numerical equivalents of verbal labels were used in the leaflets, numerically described drugs were judged equally risky as verbally described drugs but were significantly preferred for consumption. These findings have theoretical relevance for research on the processing of verbal and numerical frequentistic expressions as well as a number of practical implications for the communication of medical information.     

Factor Structure of Temperament in the Third Year of Life

In two procedures, subjects were asked to perform an arithmetic task while hearing distracting auditory messages. Subjects were instructed to ignore these messages. After each trial, subjects judged how disruptive they felt that trial's distractor had been. Subjects' self-reports were unrelated to the actual distraction effect, measured in performance. In Experiment 2, a manipulation of motivation considerably decreased the auditory messages' ability to distract; this large shift in distractor potency was not reflected in subjects' self-reports. In both procedures, subjects' judgments of distraction were not random but were systematically related to parameters of message content, parameters that turned out to be irrelevant for distractor potency.     

Considering the Knowledge You Have: Effects on Realism in Confidence Judgements

In three experiments, the hypothesis was tested that the realism of subjects' item-specific confidence judgements of their own answers to general knowledge questions would be improved by making the subjects heed content which might be expected to lower their confidence ratings. In each experiment, all subjects answered knowledge questions and then rated their confidence in their chosen answer. Before each question, the subjects in the experimental condition assessed the extent of their knowledge in a knowledge-area encompassing the knowledge question. Experiments 1 and 2 differed only in the design of the knowledge-area assessment scale. In Experiment 3, when making knowledge-area assessments, the subjects were asked to find examples of knowledge they lacked in the knowledge-area. Both Experiments 2 and 3 showed significantly improved realism in the subjects' confidence judgements. An aggregate assessment of the total number of questions believed to be answered correctly, given by the subjects at the end of Experiments 2 and 3, showed underconfidence in the experimental condition, particularly in Experiment 3. The results support the idea that the content active in subjects' memory at the time when confidence judgements are made affects their realism. Furthermore, our results show that the realism of subjects' item-specific confidence judgements can be improved without giving feedback.     

Memory for Movement Sequences in Gymnastics: Effects of Age and Skill Level

The authors studied the performances of 8- to 13-year-old skilled (n = 30) and less skilled (n = 30) gymnasts on a gymnastics routine recall task by examining the role of memorization strategies and imagery ability. Subjects had to reproduce 3 movement sequences presented on videotape. The number of trials needed to achieve correct recall, the strategies employed, and the subjects' imagery ability were analyzed. Recall performance improved with age and skill level. Movement labeling was the most prevalent strategy used; its frequency increased with age, although it did not lead to better recall performance. Performance was higher, however, among subjects with better imagery skills. The role of strategy development in the age-related improvement in memory performance was not clearly demonstrated. The effect of skill level is interpreted in terms of knowledge bases and kinesthetic movement encoding.     

Videotaped Confessions: The Impact of Camera Point of View on Judgments of Coercion1

Twenty-four college students viewed one of three videotapes of a mock police interrogation that ended in a confession. In one videotape the camera was focused primarily on the “suspect”; in a second the camera was focused primarily on the “detective”; and in the third the camera was focused on the suspect and detective equally. Subjects in the suspect-focus condition subsequently judged that the confession was elicited by means of a small degree of coercion; subjects in the equal-focus condition judged that it was elicited by means of a moderate degree of coercion; and subjects in the detective-focus condition judged that it was elicited by means of a large degree of coercion. It is argued that the effect of camera point of view on judgments of coercion is mediated by causal attributions. Consistent with this interpretation, camera point of view also had a significant effect on subjects' attributions for the suspect's behavior, with subjects in the suspect-focus condition making the most dispositional attributions and subjects in the detective-focus condition making the least dispositional attributions. Alternative explanations are considered and limitations of the present research are discussed. It is concluded that to the extent that interrogations are videotaped with the camera focused on the suspect, judges and/ or jurors may be biased to perceive a confession as voluntary.     

The Effect of Mood and Social Outlook on Hypothetical Juridic Decisions1

Data are reported for a laboratory experiment which examines both the impact of information about remote social events on judgments of defendants' guilt or innocence in two court cases and the roles of cognitive and affective elements in mediating these judgments. Subjects were exposed to one of four pretested news bulletins which covaried cognitive factors (positive or negative social information) and affective ones (positive or negative mood stimuli). In accord with previous findings, the results indicate that social information and the changes in social outlook that it caused were of primary importance in altering subjects' judgments about defendants. Subjects who heard positive social information in radio newscasts were more lenient in their judgments of defendants than were those who heard negative social information. Additional findings pertaining to the mediators of this effect suggest that positive mood amplified the impact of social information whatever its direction, while negative mood attenuated it.     

Implicit personality theory: Is it illusory?1

Several studies have found a substantial association between subjects' judgments about the co-occurrence of personality items and the items' actual co-occurrence, lending support to the validity of implicit personality theory. This work has recently been called into question by an investigation of Mirels (1976) that reported a nonsignificant relationship between judged probabilities of item pairs and the pairs' empirical coendorsement probabilities (actually calculated conditional probabilities) derived from self-report responses. Using Mirels' data as well as new data, an appreciable and highly significant association between judgments of behavioral co-occurrence and empirical coendorsement was found, when the latter was measured by correlational-type indexes instead of conditional probability. This outcome indicates that the divergent results in the Mirels investigation were due to its use of the conditional probability index as a measure of empirical coendorsement. These findings add to the accumulating body of evidence pointing to the validity of implicit personality theory.     

Anticipatory representation of visual basketball scenes by novice and expert players

This paper studies the anticipatory nature of perception in relation to subjects' expertise in basketball. The two experiments conducted showed that experts encode game situations by automatically building a representation of the next‐likely state of the observed scene. In Experiment 1, subjects had to quickly compare pairs of configurations presented in succession. The results indicated that expert subjects differentiated the second configuration from the first less accurately and more slowly when the second configuration was the next‐likely state of the first, than when it was a possible previous state. In Experiment 2, subjects had to study game configurations and then perform a recognition task. The results showed that experts more often falsely recognized new configurations when they were the next‐likely state of an already‐encoded configuration than when they represented a possible previous state. Based on these results, we discuss the nature of expert knowledge, the integration of anticipatory components in perceptual processes, and the impact of expert knowledge on visual‐scene encoding and memorization.     

The Importance of Dentofacial Appearance in Facial Esthetics: A Signal Detection Approach

Partly in response to the negative social consequences of being unattractive, more and more people every year are turning to medical and dental professionals in the United States for alterations of their facial structures. Using standards for normal and abnormal dentofacial appearance developed in orthodontics, three studies were conducted to determine whether dentofacial irregularities (malocclusions) are "detectable" by the general public and cause a devaluation of an individual's perceived facial esthetics. The following major results were obtained: (a) dentofacial appearance is significantly related to the esthetic judgments of 10-13-yearold children as well as 18-23-year-old college students; (b) the condition which orthodontists treat, dentofacial malocclusion, is a significant, detractor from a person's general facial appearance and attractiveness; (c) subjects' esthetic decisions can be correlated to measurable, classifiable differences in facial morphology.     

The Role of Source Confusions in Television's Cultivation of Social Reality Judgments

The chief hypothesis of this study was that errors in memory (specifically source confusions) contribute to the link between television viewing and social reality judgments. Fiction-to-news confusions (fictional programming remembered as news) were hypothesized to positively predict TV-biased judgments of reality. News-to-fiction confusions (news remembered as fiction) were hypothesized to negatively predict such judgments. The results of an experiment in which subjects watched television programming containing both news and fiction indicated that these hypotheses were supported. Levels of confusion interacted with daily television viewing and with the level of certainty attached to the confusions. A manipulation of the visual similarity of the news and fiction content affected subjects'tendency to make source confusions.     

Sex typing and the perception of body outlines

Does sex typing influence one's direct perception of gender from physical body cues? To answer this question, a study was conducted in which 47 female and 39 male subjects, after filling out the Bem Sex Role Inventory, viewed 24 body outlines varying in waist and shoulder width. Subjects were asked to indicate whether each body was female or male, or whether they were uncertain about its gender. Subjects also selected what they judged to be the most attractive and most typical female and male bodies from among the 24 body outlines. Finally, the actual shoulder, waist, and hip widths of 66 subjects were measured as a normative comparison to subjects' judgments of “typical” and “attractive” body proportions. Analyses indicated that sex-typed subjects used the “uncertain” rating less than did non-sex-typed subjects, and that males used that rating less than females did. Thus, sex-typed subjects and males showed a stronger tendency to classify stimuli by gender. Sex-typed subjects also tended to nominate more physically divergent male and female bodies as attractive than did non-sex-typed subjects; however, there were no effects of assessed masculinity or femininity on nominations of typical male and female bodies. In addition, the data provide evidence that subjects judged there to be greater physical differences between the sexes than actually exist. The results are discussed in terms of recent research on gender schemas and prototypes in person perception.     

Testifying on Eyewitness Reliability: Expert Advice Is Not Always Persuasive1

This study investigates the impact of different types of expert testimony regarding the unreliability of eyewitness identification. In two hypothetical court cases involving eyewitnesses, expert testimony was presented that was either sample-based (presenting the results of a research program on eyewitness identification) or person-based (presenting information about the particular eyewitness under consideration); the expert either offered causal explanations for his unreliability claim or failed to do so. Two additional control groups (with and without eye-witness identification) were not presented with any expert testimony. The results indicate that subjects who had been confronted with an expert statement made more lenient judgments about the offender but did not discount the eyewitness identification completely. Sample-based information had a moderate impact on the subjects' judgments, regardless of whether or not causal explanations were given. Person-based testimony was the most influential type of expert advice when a causal explanation was provided but the least influential one when no reasons were given. The practical (international differences in admissibility of expert testimony) and theoretical implications (processing of base-rate information) of these findings are discussed.     

Face Recognition as a Function of Judgments of Likability/Unlikability

The relationship between face recognition and likability was investigated in three experiments. Subjects were asked to rate the likability of faces presented to them and then were tested on their ability to recognize the same faces. In Experiments 1 and 2, we used the subjects' individual ratings of likability to form idiocentric groups of faces (two groups, likable/unlikable, Experiment 1; three groups, likable/neutral/unlikable, Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, likable faces were found to be recognized more readily than were faces less likable. Experiment 2 revealed that the faces judged least likable were significantly less well remembered than neutral or more likable faces. In Experiment 3, a group mean for each face's likability was determined, and the faces were divided into quartiles according to the group mean scores. Again, the subjects' recognition responses for unlikable faces were at a lower level than for faces rated higher in likability. Experiments 2 and 3 found no difference in recognition memory between neutral and more likable faces. The results confirmed the notion that likability judgments (emotionality) play a mediating role in recognition.