scholarly journals Diversity’s Impact on the Quality of Deliberations

2021 ◽  
pp. 014616722110409
Author(s):  
Amanda Nicholson Bergold ◽  
Margaret Bull Kovera
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
High Status ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Community Members ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Strength Of Evidence ◽  
Deliberation Process ◽  
Evidence Evaluation ◽  
Jury Decision

The present research builds on previous models of jury diversity’s benefits by exploring how diversity impacts the deliberation process. In Study 1, community members ( N = 433) participated in a jury decision-making study manipulating the strength of evidence (ambiguous vs. weak) and the diversity of the jury. When the evidence in the case was ambiguous, both white and black jurors made high-quality contributions to discussion in diverse juries than in nondiverse juries. In Study 2, undergraduate students ( N = 369) were randomly assigned to wealth and power conditions and then deliberated in diverse and nondiverse groups. Diverse juries were less likely to convict the defendant, and jurors on diverse juries made high-quality contributions to discussion. Although previous work has documented effects of diversity on high-status jurors’ contributions to deliberations, this work suggests that diversity may relate to more complex evidence evaluation for members of low-status groups as well.

Judges Versus Juries

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Saks ◽  
Barbara A. Spellman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Social Resources ◽  
Good News ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Factual Information ◽  
Strength Of Evidence ◽  
Information Studies ◽  
Jury Decision

The rules of evidence that have evolved prevent lawyers from using the most powerful, yet the most informationally empty, techniques of persuasion. The rules compel litigators to fight their battles by presenting juries with information. Studies conducted on jury decision-making indicate that evidence—factual information about the events in dispute—is the most potent force driving the verdicts of trials. Studies show that judges and jurors would reach the same verdicts in four-fifths of trials; that similarity is because they are responding to the same information. Studies of differences among jurors in demographics, attitudes, personalities, and knowledge have found that in the great majority of cases such differences matter very little to the outcomes of cases. Variation in the strength of evidence influences decisions far more than who is hearing the evidence. That is good news if we want trials to produce rational decisions based on evidence. The focus on evidence makes a juror’s job a demanding one, presenting challenges to understanding, remembering, evaluating, drawing inferences, and using evidence (in conjunction with the law) to reach conclusions about a disputed matter. Working as a group helps. Groups have advantages over individuals: they possess more cognitive and social resources such as wider background knowledge and experience, the ability of multiple minds to remember, to correct each other’s errors, to think about the proper meaning of the evidence, and so on.

Exploring Juror Evaluations of Expert Opinions Using the Expert Persuasion Expectancy (ExPEx) Framework

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristy Martire ◽  
Danielle Navarro ◽  
Gary Edmond
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Gait Analysis ◽  
Expert Opinion ◽  
Expert Testimony ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Expert Opinions ◽  
Jury Decision

Title: Exploring Juror Evaluations of Expert Opinions Using the Expert Persuasion Expectancy (ExPEx) Framework PurposeFactfinders in trials struggle to differentiate witnesses who offer genuinely expert opinions from those who do not. The Expert Persuasion Expectancy (ExPEx) framework proposes eight attributes logically relevant to this assessment: foundation, field, specialty, ability, opinion, support, consistency and trustworthiness. We present two experiments examining the effects of these attributes on the persuasiveness of a forensic gait analysis opinion. MethodsJury-eligible participants rated the credibility, value and weight of an expert report that was either generally strong (Exp. 1; N = 437) or generally weak (Exp. 2; N = 435). The quality of ExPEx attributes varied between participants. Allocation to condition (none, foundation, field, specialty, ability, opinion, support, consistency, trustworthiness) determined which attribute in the report would be weak (cf. strong; Exp. 1), or strong (cf. weak; Exp. 2). ResultsIn Experiment 1, the persuasiveness of a strong report was significantly undermined by weak versions of ability, consistency and trustworthiness. In Experiment 2. a weak report was significantly improved by strong versions of ability and consistency. Unplanned analyses of subjective ratings also identified effects of foundation, field, specialty and opinion.ConclusionsWe found that evidence that ability (i.e., personal proficiency), consistency (i.e., endorsement by other experts), and trustworthiness (i.e., objectivity) attributes influence opinion persuasiveness in logically appropriate ways. Ensuring that factfinders have information about these attributes may improve their assessments of expert opinion evidence. KEYWORDS: Expert opinion; Persuasion; Expert Testimony; Jury decision-making; Expert evidence

Effects of Warning Quality and Expert Testimony on Allocation of Responsibility for Consumer Product Accidents

1998 ◽  
Vol 42 (9) ◽  
pp. 665-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Wogalter ◽  
Kimberly A. Brantley ◽  
Kenneth R. Laughery ◽  
David R. Lovvoll
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Factors ◽  
Expert Testimony ◽  
Consumer Product ◽  
Expert Witnesses ◽  
Jury Decision Making ◽  
Jury Decision ◽  
As If ◽  
The Way

The purpose of this experiment was to examine the effects of warning quality and human factors expert testimony on decision making in consumer product injury cases. Participants read summaries of consumer product accidents, where a no, poor or good warning was present. In two conditions, human factors (HF) expert testimony was included, giving an opinion on the quality of the product warnings. Participants allocated percentages of responsibility to the manufacturer, retailer, and consumer, as if they were jury members assigned to the cases. Results showed differences in allocations of responsibility among conditions. Manufacturers were allocated more responsibility when there was no warning on the product or when a poor warning was present and a HF expert testified that a better warning could have been used. Allocations did not differ between poor and good warning conditions, possibly because participants viewing poor warnings lacked knowledge of the way a good warning would look. The results have implications for warning design, the use of HF expert witnesses, and jury decision making.

scholarly journals Selective attention to question-relevant text information precedes high-quality summaries: Evidence from eye movements

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
José A. León ◽  
José David Moreno ◽  
Inmaculada Escudero ◽  
Johanna K. Kaakinen
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Reading Strategies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Text Information ◽  
Selective Processing

Comprehension and summarizing are closely related. As more strategic and selective processing during reading should be reflected in higher quality of summaries, the aim of this study was to use eye movement patterns to analyze how readers who produce good quality summaries process texts. 40 undergraduate students were instructed to read six expository texts in order to respond a causal question introduced in the end of the first paragraph. After reading, participants produced an oral summary of the text. Based on the quality of the summaries, participants were divided into three groups: High, Medium and Low Quality Summaries. The results revealed that readers who produced High Quality Summaries made significantly more and longer fixations and regressions in the question-relevant parts of texts when compared to the other two summary groups. These results suggest that the summary task performance could be a good predictor of the reading strategies utilized during reading.

Automatically Evaluating the Quality of Contents Created in Collaborative Knowledge Building

2010 ◽  
pp. 137-147
Author(s):  
Kwong Bor Ng
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Roc Curves ◽  
Stepwise Discriminant Analysis ◽  
Community Members ◽  
High Quality ◽  
High Detection Rate ◽  
Building Systems ◽  
Collaborative Knowledge Building ◽  
Collaborative Knowledge

Using wikis, with minimum planning, significant projects can be accomplished almost effortlessly by collaborative knowledge building through continuous contributions from caring community members. Since any registered member can change the content of a wiki page at any time, how to enhance the quality of a wiki becomes a pressing issue. This paper reports a pilot study of identifying factors that can enhance the quality of contents built by open collaborative knowledge building. Using stepwise discriminant analysis and logistic regression, several variables were successfully identified that could contribute positively to the high quality of wiki pages. The result was analyzed using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves from signal detection theory. The predictor worked remarkably well and was promising, with a high detection rate and a low false-alarm rate. The finding can help programmers and architects of open collaborative knowledge building systems to design and implement mechanisms that will facilitate high quality content creations.

Benefits for the Vanquished

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-92
Author(s):  
Martin Crotty ◽  
Neil J. Diamant ◽  
Mark Edele
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Civil War ◽  
High Status ◽  
High Quality ◽  
War Memory ◽  
Chinese Civil War

This chapter places emphasis on issues relating to defeat, which is not exactly a positive frame within which to claim high status. It explores the cases of defeated Germany and Japan and further investigates the fate of the soldiers who retreated with the Nationalist Army to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War. It also explains how losing a war does not necessarily mean losing the peace, that even in utter defeat, when causes have been discredited, and states collapsed, veterans were not discarded and might even enjoy a reasonably high quality of care. The chapter looks at the counterintuitive story of veterans of defeated armies who obtained generous benefits that outpaced those provided to other claimant groups. It argues that defeat and discredited wars have been more problematic for war memory than for the distribution of material and symbolic benefits.

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