Effects of Mental Health and Neuroscience Evidence on Juror Perceptions of a Criminal Defendant: the Moderating Role of Political Orientation

Several recent studies have examined the effects of mental health and neuroscientific evidence on attitudes toward criminal defendants, suggesting that these factors may influence juror decision‐making in meaningful ways. Few studies to date have manipulated both of these variables while also considering theoretically important individual difference variables (e.g., political orientation). Using a criminal case simulation, this study manipulated the presence of evidence concerning mental disorders (psychopathy and schizophrenia) and increasing levels of neuroscientific detail regarding a defendant's brain injury, and examined verdicts and sentencing recommendations in over 400 persons attending jury duty. Main effects were detected for mental health testimony and political orientation, although interactions were noted as well. More negative reactions to defendants labeled as psychopaths were relatively consistent, whereas participants who identified as liberal generally were less punitive towards a defendant identified as schizophrenic than were more conservative jurors. Consistent with other recent research, juror perceptions of the defendant's level of psychopathic traits (independent of the effects of the experimental manipulations) predicted guilty verdicts and longer sentencing recommendations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interactive Effects of Characteristics of Defendant and Mock Juror on U.S. Participants' Judgment and Sentencing Recommendations

Abstract

The authors examined the effects of interactions (a) between defendant attractiveness and juror gender and (b) between defendant race and juror race on judgment and sentencing among 207 Black, Hispanic, and White participants in the United States. After reading a vehicular-homicide vignette in which the defendant's attractiveness and race varied, the participants rated guilt and recommended sentences. The women treated the unattractive female defendant more harshly than they treated the attractive female defendant; the men showed an opposite tendency. The Black participants showed greater leniency when the defendant was described as Black rather than White. The Hispanic participants showed an opposite trend, and the White participants showed no race-based leniency. The findings on racial effects were consistent (a) with in-group favorability bias among the Black participants and (b) with attribution effects unrelated to race among the White participants.     

Effects of a Visual Technology on Mock Juror Decision Making

Two studies explored the effects of lawyers' use of PowerPoint on liability judgments in a case involving statistical evidence. Participants (Study 1, N = 192; Study 2A, N = 180; Study 2B, N = 189) watched videotaped opening statements for plaintiffs and defendant. In general, defendant's responsibility was judged to be greater when plaintiffs used PowerPoint slides than when they did not and less when defendant used PowerPoint slides than when it did not. Furthermore, PowerPoint's impact was greatest when its use was unequal. PowerPoint enhanced persuasion partly through central and partly through peripheral processing. In general, each party's use of PowerPoint increased participants' recall of that party's evidence, which in turn increased defendant's judged responsibility (when plaintiffs used PowerPoint) or reduced it (when defendants used PowerPoint), indicative of central processing. PowerPoint also functioned as a peripheral cue, influencing participants' judgments of defendant's responsibility by affecting their perceptions of the respective attorneys. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Impact of Defendant Gender and Relationship to Victim on Juror Decisions in a Child Sexual Abuse Case

We examined the impact of defendant gender and relationship to victim on verdict decisions and ratings of witness believability in a case of alleged child sexual assault. Mock jurors ( N  = 256) read 1 of 4 extensive case summaries. The cases varied the gender of the defendant and his or her relationship to the child (parent or stranger). Data revealed that participants were significantly more likely to find male defendants (especially the father) guilty than female defendants. Female jurors rated the victim as more believable and the defendant as less believable than did male jurors. All mock jurors rated the victim as more believable if the defendant was male, and they saw the female defendants as more believable than the male defendants.     

Effects of Photographic Evidence on Mock Juror Judgement1

Effects of three levels of photographic evidence (color, black & white, no photograph) on 144 female subjects' monetary awards to an injured plaintiff were investigated in a 3 × 2 × 3 factorial design. Also manipulated were two levels of the severity of the plaintiff's injury and three levels of defendant blame. As predicted, a significant three-way interaction was observed such that the magnitude of the difference in monetary damages awarded the more and less severely injured plaintiff was greatest in the presence of the color photograph depicting injuries and when defendant blame was high. An emotional arousal interpretation for the effects of photographic evidence is tentatively offered.     

The Effect of Defendant's Plea on Mock Juror Decisions

Abstract

The study examined the attributional and attractional effects of admission or denial of a mistake in interaction with the stimulus person's status, the seriousness of the consequences of the mistake, and the certainty of the evidence. The factorial design of the experiment was 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 (Status x Consequences x Evidence x Admission). Male undergraduate college students in Bombay (N = 480) read a passage about a mislabeling incident in a pharmaceutical concern and then rated the stimulus person on several variables. Admission of the mistake elicited the most favorable ratings. The no-statement condition received slightly more negative evaluations than the denial condition. Higher status led to greater responsibility attribution, but seriousness of consequences did not. The most liked stimulus person was the high-status person who admitted his mistake in the condition of serious consequences and ambiguous evidence.     

Degree of Detail of Eyewitness Testimony and Mock Juror Judgments1

The influence of the degree of detail of eyewitness testimony on two sides of a court case was investigated in two experiments. In the first experiment subject-jurors read a civil court case involving an automobile-pedestrian accident. The plaintiff and the defendant presented conflicting eyewitness accounts. Judgments of the relative credibility of the eyewitnesses on each side and the percentage of negligence of the parties were influenced by the relative degree of detail of the eyewitness testimony on each side. In the second experiment subject-jurors read a criminal court case involving robbery and murder. The prosecution and defense presented conflicting eyewitness accounts. The degree of detail of the prosecution eyewitness testimony influenced judgments of guilt and judgments of the credibility of the eyewitnesses. An examination of the reasons for verdicts and credibility judgments revealed that some subjects inferred that an eyewitness who gave testimony with a greater degree of detail had a better memory for the trivial details and the culprit than an eyewitness who gave testimony with a lesser degree of detail. Implications of these results for the legal system are discussed.     

Mock Juror Attribution of Criminal Responsibility: Effects of Race and the Guilty But Mentally III (GBMI) Verdict Option1

The present study examined three questions relevant to the insanity defense: Does the availability of the alternative verdict “Guilty But Mentally III” affect juror assessment of criminal responsibility? Does race of defendant significantly affect juror decision-making about who should be acquitted under the insanity defense? And does race of victim significantly influence how jurors decide their final insanity defense verdicts? Race of defendant (black or white), race of victim (black or white), and verdict choice set [(Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI), Guilty, and Not Guilty) vs. (Guilty but Mentally III (GBMI), NGRI, Guilty, and Not Guilty)] were systematically varied. The mock-trial was presented to 197 college student subjects by means of an audiotape and slide show. Following the re-enacted trial, subjects answered a series of questions regarding the case. The main dependent variable was the rendered verdict. Both χ²loglinear analyses revealed a significant relationship between race of defendant and verdict such that the defendant, when presented as black, was acquitted NGRI significantly more often than when the defendant was presented as white. No significant effects were found for race of victim. The availability of the GBMI verdict option resulted in a twofold effect: There was a two-thirds reduction in both NGRI and straight guilty verdicts when the GBMI verdict option was made available. The implications for legal policy and future research are discussed.     

Influence of Source Liking and Personality Traits on Perceptions of Bias and Future News Source Selection

This study examined news selection intentions that followed judgments of story bias and the extent to which those intentions were influenced by source liking. The study also examined the extent to which two personality traits, argumentativeness and need for cognition, affected perceptions of story bias and intent to select an offending source in the future. Participants were more likely to say they would return to the source of a “biased” story if they liked and had selected the source previously than they were if the source was unknown. Individuals high in argumentativeness were less likely than those low in argumentativeness to view a story with negative information about their group as biased. Need for cognition was weakly related to intent to return to an offending source. Implications for consumption of counterattitudinal information and source selection in the current news environment are discussed.     

Effects of Victim,Defendant, and Juror Gender on Decisions in Child Sexual Assault Cases1

We examined the combined influence of juror, victim, and defendant gender on jurors’ decisions in child sexual abuse cases. Mock jurors read scenarios of an assault case involving a man or woman defendant accused of molesting a 15‐year‐old boy or girl. Jurors then rendered verdicts and rated the defendant's and victim's believability and responsibility for the abuse. Female jurors were generally more pro‐victim in case judgments than were male jurors. Additionally, a woman perpetrator was evaluated more leniently than was a man perpetrator, especially by male jurors when the victim was a boy. Case judgments were unrelated to jurors’ social conservatism, sexism, or attitudes toward homosexuality. Results have implications for understanding social perceptions of mixed‐ and same‐gender abuse involving adolescent victims, and juror decision making in man‐ and woman‐perpetrated child sexual assault cases.     

Mock Juror Judgment and the Insanity Plea: Effects of Incrimination and Sanity information1

Mock jurors were given information about a stabbing incident which varied in incrimination value (high or low) and a psychological profile of the perpetrator which varied in the degree of indicated insanity (high, medium, or low) in four replications of a 2 × 3 design. In one replication, the information was presented in the context of a sanity hearing where guilt was not an issue. In three other replications, the context was a criminal trial in which the defendant pleaded not guilty on the facts, not guilty by reason of insanity (NGI), or both. Judgments in the insanity plea replication were significantly affected by incrimination information even though sanity is legally the only issue. Insanity information predictably affected judgments in the sanity hearing but had only weak effects in the insanity plea context. It was concluded that the judgment dimension which equates insanity with not guilty results in a conflict which subjects resolved by viewing the dimension as more of a guilt dimension.     

Psycholexical Value Factors in Spain and Their Relation with Personality Traits

The aim of the present study is to determine the structure of values in the Spanish population and its relation to the Big Five personality traits. Using a psycholexical approach, 566 words were identified as values and administered to a sample of participants who were instructed to rate the extent to which they were guided by each value. Principal components analysis revealed seven factors: Social Recognition, Competence, Love and Happiness, Benevolence, Idealism, Equilibrium and Family. The results show that there is no complete equivalence between these factors and those obtained in previous studies. However, the results are congruent with those obtained in other studies as far as the relation between values and personality traits is concerned. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

人格特质与认知能力的关系及其年龄差异

人格是影响认知能力的重要因素, 不同的人格特质与认知能力的关系不同, 人格与认知能力的关系在不同年龄阶段也有所不同。当前的研究主要探讨了人格特质与认知能力之间的关系以及不同人格特质对不同认知能力的影响, 并在不同的年龄阶段进行比较。有关不同人格特质对认知能力的影响结果逐渐清晰, 但现有的研究结果存在很多争议。未来可以在人格的稳定性及其对认知能力的影响、人格对认知能力影响的作用机制及其相关影响因素、跨文化研究和研究范式等方面继续深化, 以获取对该研究问题更科学的研究结论。     

小学儿童欺负行为与个性特点和心理问题倾向的关系

本研究采用问卷的方式测量了儿童欺负行为与个性及心理问题倾向之间的关系。结果表明：欺负组被试在个性特征上以高精神质和相对外倾型为典型特征;受害组被试以高神经质和内倾型为典型特征。在心理问题倾向上欺负组被试更多地表现出冲动倾向、学习问题和师生关系紧张等问题倾向;受害组被试更多地表现出孤独倾向、缺乏自信、学习问题和同伴关系紧张等问题。     

Elaborating on the Construct Validity of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure in a Criminal Offender Sample

Patrick, Fowles, and Krueger (2009) developed the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy in an effort to integrate historical theories and contemporary measurement models. The model proposes 3 phenotypic domains of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Patrick (2010) developed the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM), a 58-item self-report measure, to index these 3 domains. This study examined the construct validity of the TriPM in a sample of incarcerated offenders (N = 141) and found evidence of good construct validity in that the scales were related to conceptually relevant normal-range and dysfunctional personality trait criteria, as well as narcissism and deficits in empathy.     

6～9岁儿童特质观与其人格特质的关系

为考察特质观与稳定的行为方式之间的关系,采用情境故事法和问卷法分别对180名6～9岁儿童进行了特质稳定性理解的个别测查和人格特质的教师评定。结果发现,持三种不同特质观（实体论、中间论、渐变论）的6～9岁儿童开始在认真有恒、自制稳重、聪慧性、开朗活泼和同情利他五种人格特质行为上表现出显著差异;6～9岁儿童的特质观能够预测以上五种人格特质,丽儿童“开朗插泼”和“聪慧性”特质行为的线性组合是预测儿童特质观的最佳指标。这些研究结论有助于说明关于特质的认知在调解和制约个体稳定的行为理解和反应中的重要作用,验证了人格认知流派的观点;支持了认知与人格之间交互作用的理论假设;对于解释年幼儿童发展中的不适应问题具有一定的意义。     

Connecting DSM-5 Personality Traits and Pathological Beliefs: Toward a Unifying Model

Dissatisfaction with the DSM-IV model of personality disorders has led to the development of alternative conceptualizations, including pathological trait models and models linked to particular theoretical approaches, such as Beck and Freeman’s (1990) cognitive framework. An important issue involves the potential to interweave such models into a single, parsimonious system that combines their distinct advantages. In this study, pathological trait and dysfunctional belief data from 616 individuals in a non-clinical sample were evaluated for commensurability using structural equation modeling. These models can be integrated via five higher-order factors, and that specific dimensions of dysfunctional beliefs can be differentiated based on features of the DSM-5 trait model. Overall, these results suggest that traits provide scaffolding for individual differences in pathological personality, within which dysfunctional beliefs offer specific vectors for clinical intervention in a cognitive framework. Implications of the empirical commensurability of trait and cognitive models are discussed.