-Race, age, gender, attractiveness and cleanliness can all affect a jury's verdict. E.g. black people are more likely to be found guilty than white people when accused of the same crime
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Strengths of characteristic theory
-Castellow: In a mock jury trial of a sexual harassment case jurors were more likely to find attractive defendants not guilty and unattractive defendants guilty-halo effect. 56% off attractive people and 76% of unattractive people found guilty.
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Majority Influence
-A minority juror can be influenced to conform to the majority. Asch found that 75% of pps would conform to the majority at least once. The juror wants to fit in (normative social influence) or doubt themselves (informational social influence)
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Group Polarisation
-If the jurors agree, decisions may be more extreme in the group than the individuals.
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Group Think
-The situation where members of the group think the most important thing is agreement so may not offer their opinion. It can lead to the ignoring of important evidence and wrong convictions.
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Strengths of majority influence
Strasser & Stweart-lab experiment, everyone got same info except 1. Only shared info was discussed, showing group decisions in a jury conform to the majority.
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Support for Group Polarisation
Stoner 1961: individuals were asked to make a decision, then join a group with 4 other pps and make a decision-decisions were intensified, showing group decisions become more extreme.
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Support for Group Think
Walter & Hans 2009: 3500 real jurors were asked if they were a 1 person jury what their verdict would have been. 1/3 said they would have voted differently to the jury's decision. This suggests group think can affect juries' decisions.
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Minority Influence
1 or 2 jurors who view differently can sway the majority. Muscovici found 32% would conform to the minority at least once, Pps answered in line with minority 1.25% when inconsistent, but 8.42% when consistent. Esp. ambiguous-12 Angry Men & Clarke
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Support for Minority Influence
Nemeth & Brilmayer: mock jury trial over skiing accident compensation. They found that a minority juror who was flexible and consistent could shape a jury's decision.
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Methodology strengths
Castellow & Nemeth-High reliability because they were done under controlled lab conditions with IV (race, gender etc.) is changed to see effect on DV (jury's verdict)
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Weaknesses of Jury Decisions research
Low in external validity-artificial condition so not true to life. e.g. Nemeth's pps knew it wasn't a real trial
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Strength of Group Think
External validity high-tends to be based on real life jurors e.g. Walter & Hans, so paints a truer picture than mock jury trials
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Weaknesses of Jury Decisions research
Sampling Bias-opportunist student samples 18-25 who were promised extra credits, whereas real juries are 18-69 from all social classes, so are not representative.
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
-Castellow: In a mock jury trial of a sexual harassment case jurors were more likely to find attractive defendants not guilty and unattractive defendants guilty-halo effect. 56% off attractive people and 76% of unattractive people found guilty.
Back
Strengths of characteristic theory
Card 3
Front
-A minority juror can be influenced to conform to the majority. Asch found that 75% of pps would conform to the majority at least once. The juror wants to fit in (normative social influence) or doubt themselves (informational social influence)
Back
Card 4
Front
-If the jurors agree, decisions may be more extreme in the group than the individuals.
Back
Card 5
Front
-The situation where members of the group think the most important thing is agreement so may not offer their opinion. It can lead to the ignoring of important evidence and wrong convictions.
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