Beliefs and expectancies in legal decision making: an introduction to the Special Issue

This introduction describes what the co-editors believe readers can expect in this Special Issue. After beliefs and expectancies are defined, examples of how these constructs influence human thought, feeling, and behavior in legal settings are considered. Brief synopses are provided for the Special Issue papers on beliefs and expectancies regarding alibis, children’s testimony behavior, eyewitness testimony, confessions, sexual assault victims, judges’ decisions in child protection cases, and attorneys’ beliefs about jurors’ perceptions of juvenile offender culpability. Areas for future research are identified, and readers are encouraged to discover new ways that beliefs and expectancies operate in the legal system

All Anchors Are Not Created Equal: The Effects of Per Diem versus Lump Sum Requests on Pain and Suffering Awards

This experiment examined whether different quantifications of the same damage award request ($175,000 lump sum,$10/ hour, $240/day,$7300/month for 2 years) influenced pain and suffering awards compared to no damage award request. Jury-eligible community members (N = 180) read a simulated personal injury case in which defendant liability already had been determined. Awards were: (1) larger for the $10/hour and$175,000 conditions than the $7300/month and control conditions and (2) more variable for the$10/hour condition than the $7300/month and control conditions. No differences emerged on ratings of the parties, their attorneys, or the difficulty of picking a compensation figure. We discuss the theoretical implications of our data for the anchoring and adjustment literature and the practical implications for legal professionals

Juror need for cognition and sensitivity to methodological flaws in expert evidence

Two studies investigated the influence of juror need for cognition on the systematic and heuristic processing of expert evidence. U.S. citizens reporting for jury duty in South Florida read a 15-page summary of a hostile work environment case containing expert testimony. The expert described a study she had conducted on the effects of viewing sexualized materials on men\u27s behavior toward women. Certain methodological features of the expert\u27s research varied across experimental conditions. In Study 1 (N = 252), the expert\u27s study was valid, contained a confound, or included the potential for experimenter bias (internal validity) and relied on a small or large sample (sample size) of college undergraduates or trucking employees (ecological validity). When the expert\u27s study included trucking employees, high need for cognition jurors in Study 1 rated the expert more credible and trustworthy than did low need for cognition jurors. Jurors were insensitive to variations in the study\u27s internal validity or sample size. Juror ratings of plaintiff credibility, plaintiff trustworthiness, and study quality were positively correlated with verdict. In Study 2 (N = 162), the expert\u27s published or unpublished study (general acceptance) was either valid or lacked an appropriate control group (internal validity) and included a sample of college undergraduates or trucking employees (ecological validity). High need for cognition jurors in Study 2 found the defendant liable more often and evaluated the expert evidence more favorably when the expert\u27s study was internally valid than when an appropriate control group was missing. Low need for cognition jurors did not differentiate between the internally valid and invalid study. Variations in the study\u27s general acceptance and ecological validity did not affect juror judgments. Juror ratings of expert and plaintiff credibility, plaintiff trustworthiness, and study quality were positively correlated with verdict. The present research demonstrated that the need for cognition moderates juror sensitivity to expert evidence quality and that certain message-related heuristics influence juror judgments when ability or motivation to process systematically is low

Expect the unexpected: The mediating role of expectations in jurors' perceptions of emotional children

Children’s emotional expressions vary widely while they discuss their experiences with alleged abuse. However, jurors perceive emotional children as more credible than unemotional children. This pattern may reflect a demonstration of expectancy violations theory, wherein jurors expect children to be emotional while testifying and view violations as indicative of unreliability. The present study will directly test this mechanism by attempting to shift jurors’ expectations and measuring whether their credibility perceptions follow

A National Survey of Child Forensic Interviewers: Implications for Research, Practice, and Law

We surveyed a national sample of child forensic interviewers to learn the types of information they wanted to have before interviewing children, their attitudes and beliefs about forensic interviews, the characteristics of their interviews, and their professional experiences

The State of Open Science in the Field of Psychology and Law

The field of psychology and law can meaningfully influence the lives of people involved in the justice and legal systems. As such, its researchers have a responsibility to conduct valid, transparent, and accessible science. Although open science practices have not yet reached widespread and universal adoption in psychology and law, very few researchers expressed negative opinions about these practices or were opposed to implementing them at least in some form. Education, resources, open discourse, and collaborative problem solving are needed to better align psychology and law researchers’ favorable perceptions of open science with actual use