Jurors Decision Making - Assignment Example

Title Introduction The jury is an integral part of the legal system in a number of nations, especially those former colonies of the British Empire like the United States, New Zealand, Great Britain, Latin America, Canada, Ireland, Australia, Northern Ireland, some parts of Africa, and Scotland. It is composed of laypersons who participate in making decisions on legal cases. Since juries are community members, they can interpret law in line with the prevailing norms and mores, making legal decisions consistent with community values (Hastie, 1994). The jury advocates contend that lay participation, about six or twelve community members, elevates the reliability of the legal decision because instead of a single judge, multiple members deliberate the verdict on a legal issue. As compared to judicial decisions, then, jury decisions have greater legitimacy. In addition, lay participation through jury service is a means of educating the general public concerning the state’s legal system. Jurors Decision Making As psychology undergoes further developments, it gains significance in sociological fields such as legal system. The application of psychological constructs on legal decision making has been given an increasing attention (Brewer, and Williams, 2005). In giving the final verdict for civil and criminal cases, some may admire the decision made by jurors while others may condemn the final decision. Since there is always two involved parties in any legal cases, the plaintiff and the accused, the jurors’ decision is always subjected to criticism as the verdict favours one side over the other. With this scenario, social psychologists made various examinations on juror decision making through direct interview with judges and jurors, field experiments and simulations, and archival data. Generally, as experts reported, juries possess competence as legal decision makers: they perform similar to the judges’ level, they are conscious on the nature of the adversary process, and they tend to form decisions that simultaneously attain different goals (Solomon, 2002). Attributions and Jurors Understanding one’s responsibility to and causes of actions is fundamental to the interpretation of one’s social behaviour. Attribution theory provides insights to responsibility and causality of social behaviours. It offers explanation along with the underpinning causes for observed behaviours, shedding light into thoughts that may generate future actions. Attribution theory posits on the notion that individuals seek for an explanation of crises and unexpected events. Underlying this theory are three basic postulates: (1) in explaining social behaviour, individuals employ systematic process; (2) individuals associate observed behaviours to specific causes; and (3) after assigning causes to observed behaviours, the attributions made now take influence on the succeeding behaviours and feelings. Attributions are classified as external and internal, wherein external attributions assign behaviours to environmental factors like task difficulty, restrictions, luck, or resources, while internal attributions associate specific behaviours to internal factors such as individual’s personality, effort, intelligence, stable characteristics, or variable traits (Brown, 2006). Individuals, more often, attribute their failures to external causes, whereas their respective successes are tended to be attributed to their internal traits. On the other hand, while individuals attribute others’ failures to internal traits, they blame their own failures to external factors like bad luck and restrictions. Kelly’s Covariation Model Harold Kelley’s attribution model describes how individuals utilise information and generate attributions for the observed social behaviours of other individuals (Martinko and Thomson, 1998, p. 271). There are two major premises in Kelly’s model: the principle of covariation and the discounting effect. The covariation principle covers the multiple instances of social behaviour, where “an effect is attributed to specific causes that covary, over time.” This denotes that as observer evaluates multiple instances of behaviour, he examines the outcomes that are associated or covary with specific causes. Discounting effect, another principle, is applied to single instances of behaviour, asserting that “in generating an effect, the role of a given cause is discounted in the presence of other possible causes.” This means that individuals examine the observed behaviours of other individuals relative to other plausible causes. Thus, in making judgments, individuals employ consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus information. The assessment of such information results to a conclusion regarding the specific cause of one’s behaviour (Brown, 2006). That is, the three combinations of consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus information produce definite entity, circumstance, and person attributions. Findings of Related Studies Numerous studies were conducted, assessing the effects of physical and demographic attributes, attitude, and personality to jury’s severity of verdict and sentencing. Regarding jurors’ verdicts, based on demographic factors, it was reported that the legal decisions of juries are related to the ethnicity of both defendant and jury (Daudistel, Hosch, Holmes, and Graves, 1999). Further, younger accused receive less cruel verdict while older defendants tend to receive severe sentencing. Similarly, less attractive defendants are generally given a harsh sentence than the attractive accused (Smith and Hed, 1979). According to Dixon and Tredoux (1994), jurors’ attribution of guilt is also related to speech accommodation. Locus of Control Individuals who posses an internal locus of control deem that event and things in their lives, as well as the consequences of their actions, are under their control. On the contrary, individuals with an external locus of control tend to believe that events in their lives are out of their control. Hence, a person with an internal locus of control deems events in his life as his own responsibility while a person with an external locus of control blames the consequences of his actions to someone else. It is postulated then that jurors with an internal locus of control favours harsh verdict to culprits than external locus jurors (Ogloff, 2002). Attribution Error Attributions frequently identify an individual or favour a situation where consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus are low. An attribution error is the tendency of the individual to overestimate the effect of dispositional factors on human behaviours and underestimate the impact of situational factors (Pennington, 2000). For example, individuals may directly associate aggressive behaviours to personality traits; however, aggressive behaviours can also be attributed to situational circumstances. Hence, in making judgment, one must consider both dispositional and situational factors that provoke behavioural responses. Moods and Emotion Moods and emotions can affect legal decision in several ways. One of such ways is through the “information strategies” of juries. Individuals favour schema-driven or “top-down” against data-driven or “bottom-up” in processing information, which can influence legal judgments. Anger, for example, may provoke jurors to utilise stereotypes, a top-down information processing, leading to the attribution of the crime liability with respect to the stereotype (Bodenhausen, Sheppard, and Kramer, 1994). This would hold a criminal defendant responsible for a stereotype-consistent offence over the stereotype-inconsistent. Another means by which moods and emotions influence the jury decision is the “mood-congruency effect.” This would likely result to bias judgment in conformance with the valence of the jurors’ mood. For instance, the negative mood of the jurors could perceive and recall more negative details about one party, either the plaintiff or the defendant, making a bias ruling against that party. Nevertheless, moods and emotions can influence, directly or indirectly, the jury decision by means of “informational cues,” perceived by the jurors, regarding the attribution of blame or crime liability (Bless, Schwarz, Clore, Golirano, Rabe, and Wolk, 1996). In particular, studies showed that individuals in relatively positive moods are more likely to think creatively, apply inductive reasoning, and draw better associations based on the empirical evidence, than those in neutral mood. Similarly, individuals in relatively negative moods are prone to employ deductive and analytic thinking. Negative moods favour bottom-up and more deliberate processing of information (Forgas, 2003), while happy moods lead individuals to top-down information processing (Park and Banaji, 2000). As such, emotions like disgust, happiness, and anger are more associated with a high sense of certainty, while sadness, anxiety, and hope are linked with uncertainty. The higher the sense of certainty an individual, the fewer tendencies he has for a systematic processing of information; the individual has a greater sense of confidence that he can properly solve the issue at hand because of the belief that he already knows every detail of the task (Tiedens and Linton, 2001). Likewise, moods affect the information processing as individuals ponder information upon giving judgment; the nature of judgment formed is more likely congruent with the mood. Individuals who ponder information under positive moods are inclined to a constructive evaluation of the presented testimonies, whereas individuals under negative moods are more likely to evaluate negatively the presented information (Petty, Fabrigar, and Wegener, 2003). Analysis and Conclusion A significant psychological construct, utilised during jury deliberation, is the perception of “who to blame,” or making attributions with respect to the legal case at hand. Based on psychological principles, as an individual is exposed to unexpected event, anxiety is generated. This anxiety is resolved by the individual by attributing blame on specific factors. In connection to this, as jurors face every legal case, anxiety among them arises which instigate them to resolve the case by giving verdict. By considering the notions on the locus of control, jurors with an internal locus tend to put the blame solely on the part of the defendant due to the failure of the latter to deal the situation efficiently. On the other hand, external locus jurors primarily anchored their decision on the situation into which the accused was involved. Attributing blame, then, is an instinctively controlling factor. Furthermore, research has revealed the glaring effects of moods and emotions on the processing of information, which involves the receptivity to persuasive information. Moods and emotions could influence the jury decision in at least three ways: information strategies, mood-congruency effect, and informational cues. The kind of mood under which the jury ponder information influences the nature of judgement. More likely, the legal decision is congruent with the mood of the jury during the presentation of information. As well, the emotions of the jury, triggered by the case, affect the nature of the verdict; empathy towards the victim could incite the jurors to put the blame and crime liability to the defendant. Nevertheless, underestimating situational factors and overestimating dispositional factors, or vice versa, most likely leads to attribution error. It is important then to maintain balance between situational and dispositional factors in making judgment and sustaining moods and emotional neutrality, while making attributions concerning blame and crime responsibility. References Bless, H., Schwarz, N., Clore, G., Golisano, V., Rabe, C., and W¨olk, M. (1996). Mood and the use of scripts: Does a happy mood really lead to mindlessness? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 665–679. Bodenhausen, G., Sheppard, L., and Kramer, G. (1994). Negative affect and social judgment: The differential impact of anger and sadness. European Journal of Social Psychology, 24, 45–62. Brewer, N., and Williams, K. D. (2005). Psychology and law: An empirical perspective. New York: Guilford Press. Brown, C. (2006). Social psychology. Sage course companions. London: Sage Publ. Daudistel, H.C., Hosch, H.M., Holmes, M.D., and Graves, J.B. 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