This thesis explored the roles of trust, bias, and narrative in legal storytelling and made suggestions for improving legal storytelling and avoiding bias and mistrust when telling and analyzing legal stories. This study was a background and literature review and synthesis of the role of narrative, trust and bias in both general and legal presentation. The current thesis integrated many diverse sources to create an overview of the development of these psychological aspects in the legal field and in legal presentation. The most relevant studies to the legal field and legal presentation were included for integration and synthesis. From the sources and data synthesized, the researcher gives recommendations on how to improve legal presentation using narrative, with a focus on increasing trust and reducing bias among audience members and decision makers in legal proceedings. There was a significant focus on the role of narrative, and how it must be used to convey truth. This study demonstrated that while narrative is important in the legal field, it is even more critical that it is used ethically, and reflects the truth as clearly as the attorneys understand it.

<p> Research suggests that most Americans harbor weight-related prejudices, which can translate into discrimination against the obese across a variety of contexts. Yet, little is known about how anti-fat bias may influence juror decisions in cases involving an obese trial participant. This study examined the main and interactive effects of plaintiff weight, deliberations, and individual differences on jurors&rsquo; decisions in a medical malpractice case. The Culpable Control Model (CCM) was used to ground the research and to help illuminate the attributional processes underlying mock jurors&rsquo; decisions. </p><p> College student mock jurors were presented with a photograph of either a normal weight or obese plaintiff and assigned to non-deliberating or deliberating conditions. After reading the case summary, non-deliberating jurors rendered case judgments independently and responded to a series of items designed to measure attributional processes in accordance with the CCM. Deliberating jurors also reviewed the case summary independently but then discussed the case in small groups; each group rendered case judgments as a jury. Following deliberations, jury group members were instructed to provide independent, &ldquo;individual level&rdquo; responses to the same series of items completed by the non-deliberating jurors. Several individual differences were assessed in the total sample, including belief in a just world (BJW), belief in the protestant work ethic (BPWE), and anti-fat attitudes (AFAs). </p><p> Results revealed no main effects of plaintiff weight on case-related judgments or on any of the measures of attributional processes. However, deliberations and several individual difference variables moderated the effects of plaintiff weight on the dependent variables. Contrary to expectations, deliberations appeared to exacerbate rather than attenuate the effects of anti-fat bias on jurors&rsquo; decisions. Compared to non-deliberating jurors, deliberating jurors were more likely to find the obese plaintiff responsible for the negative medical outcome and awarded fewer non-economic damages to the obese plaintiff. Numerous individual differences variables moderated the effects of plaintiff weight on the dependent variables, but BJW was the strongest, most consistent moderator. As expected, those with stronger just world beliefs were less likely to find the defendant liable and were overall more punitive toward the obese plaintiff than those with weaker beliefs. Analyses further indicated that jurors&rsquo; attributional processes were consistent with those proposed by the CCM, such that their initial reactions to the case and the plaintiff and defendant influenced their interpretation of attributional information and criteria, which in turn influenced their case decisions. Significant findings not directly tied to formally advanced hypotheses also emerged. Overall, deliberating jurors were more lenient toward the defendant than non-deliberating jurors. In addition, analyses revealed several main effects of individual difference variables on case judgments and attributional processes. </p><p> This research is limited in terms of verisimilitude and generalizability; yet, it also yields many significant findings that have thus far been undocumented in published studies. Both the contributions and limitations of this study illuminate exciting directions for future research. In particular, more research is needed to clarify how anti-fat bias may affect jurors&rsquo; in particular circumstances, how civil jurors&rsquo; decisions may be impacted by deliberations and individual differences more generally, and how the CCM can best be used to help understand decision-making in applied contexts.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University. / Reproduction of original from Yale Law School Library. Bibliography: p. 5-8.

<p> Utah public defenders (<i>n</i> = 96) completed a survey tool that provided data on their sources and extent of occupational stress. The data also indicated any differences in job-stressors scores, perceived stress scores, and occupational burnout scores when comparing public defenders by their demographic factors. Having too many cases is the most stressful of 35 job stressors and is moderately more stressful for female public defenders than for male public defenders, <i>t</i>(94) = &ndash;2.98, <i> p</i> = .004, <i>d</i> = .67. The most stressful of six job-stressor categories is structural/systemic, followed closely by prosecutors. </p><p> The PSS-10 indicated that a total of 74% of the Utah public defenders perceive themselves as having moderate or high perceived stress. In addition, female public defenders perceive themselves as experiencing more stress than do the male public defenders, <i>t</i>(94) = &ndash;3.53, <i> p</i> = .001, <i>d</i> = .80. ANOVA and Games-Howell post hoc indicated that public defenders aged 60 years or older experience minimally less perceived stress than do public defenders ages 30&ndash;39 and 50&ndash;59 years old, <i>F</i>(4,18.64) = 4.748, <i>p</i> = .008, &eta;²<i>_p</i> = .104. The MBI-HSS indicated that Utah public defenders are experiencing moderate (inching towards higher) levels of occupational burnout. ANOVA and Tukey post hoc indicated that public defenders age 60 years or older experience minimally less emotional exhaustion than are public defenders ages 30&ndash;39 and 50&ndash;59 years old, <i> F</i>(4, 91) = 2.833, <i>p</i> = .029, &eta;²<i>_p</i> = .111.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this research is to address how coercive police interrogation tactics can lead to a phenomenon rising in social consciousness, false confessions, with specific attention paid to the most popular form of police interrogation tactics, the Reid Technique. This research surveyed current law students to understand their perspectives regarding perceived coercion of certain interrogation tactics and the likelihood that such coercive interrogation tactics would elicit a false confession. The researcher also set out to determine if providing the psychology behind coercive interrogation tactics, and how they may lead to false confessions is perceived as useful to law students, and how likely it is that they would utilize such information in their future practices. This research is a first of its kind in that no other research has examined false confessions as related to law students; the only research regarding surveying criminal justice professionals surveyed law enforcement professionals, the interrogators, themselves. Although, presumably, due to a low sample size no significance was determined for the intervention used, there are still practical applications for the results of the research conducted. </p><p>

<p> Police officers decide to detain and search civilians under uncertainty and risk, and both false positive and false negative errors can be costly. The courts apply the <i>reasonable suspicion</i> standard of proof to evaluate the constitutionality of nonconsensual stops and searches, placing an ambiguous and subjective assessment of a poorly understood psychological state at the center of laws, policies, and trainings on police-civilian contact. The law and psychology of suspicion may have important effects on the frequency, accuracy, and reporting of policing decisions. Investigating those effects requires an understanding of the policy landscape of police decision-making and the basic psychology of suspicion. </p><p> In this dissertation, I explore suspicion as a legal concept and as a psychological experience. I describe the role of the reasonable suspicion standard in judicial evaluations of the constitutionality of police practices, and the implications for the guidelines and trainings that agencies provide to officers. I contend that legal and quantitative analyses of policing practices should incorporate an understanding of the psychology of individual decision-making and the incentives created by the regulatory environment. The constitutional analysis assumes that civilian behavior, situational circumstances, and prior knowledge all affect an officer&rsquo;s experience of suspicion and subsequent actions. Very little is known, however, about the basic psychology of suspicion and how it might affect judgment and decision-making. </p><p> I investigate the psychological properties and covariates of interpersonal suspicion as reported by lay participants in a series of studies, establishing a baseline to which I will compare the effects of training and professional experience in future research. Using latent variable models and automated text analyses, I find that during experiences of interpersonal suspicion of a stranger, people tend to question the stranger&rsquo;s intentions and experience intuition, attentiveness, and wariness. In these situations, distrust is more closely associated with emotional arousal than interpersonal suspicion. On average, female participants report slightly higher situational interpersonal suspicion relative to male participants, and participants who identify as Black or African American report lower suspicion relative to those who identify as White, Latino, or Hispanic. </p><p> Relative to participants, the people who are targets of situational suspicion are more often described as male, Black, and Latino. On average, participants report a similar degree of suspicion across perceived target gender and racial categories, but there are significant differences among the associated emotions, inferences, and behavioral responses. Participants describing male and Black targets report experiencing greater fear and believing that the target&rsquo;s behavior was dangerous. Participants describing male targets are more likely to report inferring that the target&rsquo;s behavior was criminal, relative to participants describing female targets. </p><p> The dispositional tendency toward interpersonal suspicion is associated with neuroticism and low agreeableness in two samples of university students, and these findings are insensitive to variations in measurement instruments. In a simulation where university students take on the role of a police officer and report their suspicion in response to either Black or White male targets, I find that aggregate measures of dispositional interpersonal suspicion are uncorrelated with ratings of situational suspicion in response to the stimuli, which do not differ significantly by race of the target. An exploratory analysis suggests that dispositional suspicion, as measured by a single item, is associated with higher ratings of situational suspicion in response to White targets only. </p><p> My findings suggest that during experiences of interpersonal suspicion of strangers, people tend to question the stranger&rsquo;s intentions and experience intuition, attentiveness, and wariness, and that the type of cognitive arousal associated with suspicion may be context-specific. In the concluding discussion, I also identify findings that could be particularly relevant in the legal context, including the salience of intuition in experiences of suspicion and the variation associated with target race in the correlates of suspicion. I aim to advance the current understanding of suspicion and establish a foundation for future research on its role in legal decision-making.</p><p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2008. / Title from title screen (site viewed Aug. 12, 2008). PDF text: vi, 95 p. ; 1 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3297656. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Florida, 1982. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-153).

<p> Attorneys in the United States suffer from higher-than-average rates of depression, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation. Although these facts are widely accepted, at the time of the study, there was no consensus in the legal or research communities as to the cause of these alarming statistics. The combination of behavioral and psychological distress experienced by attorneys may suggest that burnout is a contributing factor. This study examined the relationship between workplace stressors and professional burnout. The literature review summarized recent and landmark studies in the field, as well as explored characteristics unique to the legal profession that were putting attorneys at risk. In an effort to understand the best practices that reduced instances of burnout in practicing attorneys, the phenomenological study asked participants about their experiences as an attorney, as well as the practices they employed to mitigate professional stress. The research findings supported the literature review and resulted in important implications for law firms, bar associations, law schools, and practitioners.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine moral disengagement strategies, such as dehumanization, responsibility displacement, and victim blame, in mock juror decision making in a case involving the gay panic defense. Mock jurors with high levels of moral disengagement were expected to find the defendant guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter more often than mock jurors with low levels of moral disengagement. Mock jurors read one of two vignettes that outlined a murder case in which the defendant claimed he was provoked either by an unwanted homosexual advanced from the victim, or an attempted robbery and assault by the victim. They were then asked choose between the charges of manslaughter and murder for the defendant. It was hypothesized that the defendant using the gay panic defense would receive more findings of manslaughter than the defendant in the robbery and assault vignette. This hypothesis was not supported, as the defendant in the robbery and assault vignette received more verdicts finding him guilty of manslaughter than the defendant in the gay panic vignette. However, 57% of mock jurors still supported the use of the gay panic defense. Moral disengagement did not have a significant effect on mock juror decision making in either vignette. Mock jurors with high levels of victim blame found the defendant guilty of manslaughter more often than those with low levels of victim blame. Limitations of this study and implications for society and the legal system are discussed, and future directions for research are offered.</p>