Factors affecting Jury Decision Making

what factors affect decision making

• attraction

• apparent profession

• clothing

• gender

• similarity

• accent

• race

what characteristics impact decision making

• race

• attractiveness

• accent

what is supporting evidence for the impact of attractiveness

Abswander and Hough (2001)

what did Abswander and Hough aim to do

investigate the attractive leniency hypothesis

how was many participants did Abswander and Hough use

207 in total- 129 women and 78 men

what were the findings for Abswander and Hough

• women were more lenient to attractive women and less to unattractive

  • men showed the opposite

what is the halo effect

when one trait is used to make an overall judgement

what is supporting evidence for ethnicity’s impact

Bradbury and Williams (2013)

what did Bradbury and Williams do

analysed data from real US cases

what did Bradbury and Williams find

• juries mostly of white people were more likely to convict black defendants

• hispanic followed the trend too

what did the Pfeifer & Ogloff (1991) study do

participants read a transcript of a trial in which the race of the victim and defendant were varied

what did Pfeifer & Ogloff find

• matched earlier findings

• black defendants were found guiltier than white defendants

• especially if the victim was white

what is supporting evidence for the impact accents have

Dixon et al (2002)

how did Dixon investigate accent as a factor

• looked at regional accent on guilt attribution

• recorded convo played for 119 participants

• significantly higher guilt given for birmingham accent

what is pre-trial publicity

information in the media about a case before it begins. may include facts about the crime and the suspect, including details about past offences, as well as comments and opinions

how does PTP affect decision making

cause prejudice as if publicity is widespread enough, it can be very difficult to get 12 people who don’t know about the case to be on the jury