Within the framework of the Story Model of juror decision making, using an actual personal injury automobile accident case, this thesis investigated the influence of mock jurors??? emotional response to an injured plaintiff on decisions about defendant liability and the plaintiff???s contributory negligence as well as the efficacy of procedural legal safeguards to control any such biases. Study One validated the Story Model of juror decision making in individual decisions, and revealed that mock jurors failed to consider the requisite legal elements in rendering a verdict. Study Two ascertained participants??? affective response to a mock trial in which evidence relevant to liability was held constant and the severity of the plaintiff???s injuries differed. A multiple mediator model revealed that sympathy for the plaintiff and anger toward the defendant mediated the relation between injury severity and determinations of the relative culpability of the parties. Study Three demonstrated that mock jurors exposed to emotionally evocative damages evidence constructed stories about the defendant???s liability and the plaintiff???s contributory negligence that differed from those constructed in response to emotionally neutral evidence. Study Four showed that the process of group deliberation failed to correct the misuse of evidence relevant to damages in liability decisions. However, Study Five demonstrated that judicial admonitions both acknowledging mock jurors??? emotional response to the evidence and explaining why this response was irrelevant to judgments of liability moderated the influence of emotional states on decisions about liability and contributory negligence. Study Six indicated that jury-eligible citizens??? conceptions of negligence law closely matched the normative model of negligence law, and that their mental models of negligence cases that ended successfully for the plaintiff featured more severely injured plaintiffs than those that ended unsuccessfully for the plaintiff. These studies addressed analytical and methodological weaknesses in previous research, resolved conflicting findings on fusion of liability and damages, provided direct empirical support for the central premise of the Story Model of juror decision making, and advanced knowledge on the influence of emotion on decisions in civil legal cases.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/257536 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Shanahan, Christopher Michael, Psychology, Faculty of Science, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Psychology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Christopher Michael Shanahan, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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