Objective and subjective comprehension of jury instructions in criminal trials

It would seem important that jury instructions are clear and comprehensible to jurors if they are to effectively carry out their responsibility in criminal trials. Research suggests, however, that jurors may not fully understand instructions despite reporting high levels of comprehension. The current study (N = 33) surveyed jurors who had recently served on a jury to assess their level of comprehension and the factors that contributed to their decisions. It was found that a substantial proportion of jurors were mistaken about directions relating to beyond reasonable doubt and burden of proof. It also was found that higher levels of self-reported comprehension were associated with self-reported reliance on additional factors to arrive at a decision, and a more positive evaluation of the prosecutions' case. Overall, although jurors report that they understand directions, they do not appear to use those directions in arriving at a decision. Subjective comprehension appears to be an important factor in understanding the effect of directions on jurors

Judgments of sexual assault: the impact of complainant emotional demeanor, gender and victim stereotypes

The sexual assault victim "who comes to the attention of the authorities has her victimization measured against the current rape mythologies" (R v. Seaboyer, 1991). This is particularly troubling given that lay beliefs regarding the crime of sexual assault are at odds with the data documenting the circumstances surrounding actual rape. Research has consistently demonstrated that lay people (hence, jurors) will question the validity of a sexual assault claim and judge the victim more harshly, if the circumstances surrounding the assault and/or the characteristics and actions of the sexual assault complainant do not comport with people's expectations about the event. In this paper we report the results of a juror simulation that examines the impact of victim's postassault emotional demeanor on judgments, in the context of independent manipulations of gender stereotypicality and victim stereotypicality. Results revealed that the complainant's emotional display had a powerful impact on participants' judgments, with the claim viewed as more valid when the complainant was portrayed as tearful/upset as opposed to calm/controlled, but only when the complainant was portrayed as gender stereotypic

On being loud and proud: Non-conformity and counter-conformity to group norms

Most experiments on conformity have been conducted in relation to judgments of physical reality; surprisingly few papers have experimentally examined the influence of group norms on social issues with a moral component. In response to this, we told students that they were either in a minority or in a majority relative to their university group on their attitudes toward recognition of gay couples in law (Experiment 1: N=205) and a government apology to Aborigines (Experiment 2: N=110). We found that participants who had a weak moral basis for their attitude, or who perceived high societal support for their attitude, were more willing to privately act in line with their attitude when they had group support than when they did not. In contrast, those who had a strong moral basis for their attitude, or who perceived low societal support for their attitude, showed non-conformity on private behaviors and counter-conformity on public behaviors. Incidences of non-conformity and counter-conformity are discussed with reference to the traditional theoretical emphasis on assimilation to group norms

Predicting the paths of peripherals: The interaction of identification and future possibilities

Two studies investigated how both degree of identification and the individual's position within the group influence aspects of group loyalty. The authors considered ingroup position in terms of both the individual's current position within a group and expectations concerning the likelihood that one's position might change., in the future. Peripheral group members learned that their acceptance by other group members would improve in the future or that they could expect rejection by other group members. Various indices of group loyalty (ingroup homogeneity, motivation to work for the group, and evaluation of a motivated group member) showed that when group members anticipated future rejection, the lower the identification the less loyal they were. In contrast, those who expected future acceptance were more loyal (more motivated to work for the group) the lower their identification. Current group behavior depends on both intragroup future expectations and level of identification.This research was supported by a fellowship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences to the first author, and a NWO Visiting Professorship grant to the second author. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous draft of the manuscript

Cognitive dissonance in groups

Cognitive dissonance theory, as originally set out by Festinger (1957), described dissonance as an intraindividual phenomenon in a social context. Much of the research on dissonance has focused on the intraindividual aspect of dissonance. The limited research that has looked at cognitive dissonance in groups has done so from a range of different perspectives. These perspectives seem to result in contradictory predictions about the role of social information on the arousal and reduction of cognitive dissonance, despite generally sharing a model of the social self based on, or consistent with, social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978). Thinking about how these group-based models of cognitive dissonance fit together may better illuminate the nature of dissonance and also suggest productive avenues for research to integrate these various perspectives on dissonance