NCJ Number
89885
Journal
Journal of Research in Personality Volume: 16 Issue: 4 Dated: (1982) Pages: 419-434
Date Published
1982
Length
16 pages
Annotation
For a jury to reach a unanimous decision, certain individuals must change their attitudes concerning the defendant's guilt during deliberations. This paper discusses three experiments which studied juror decisionmaking.
Abstract
Because these 'changers' (member of the jury) are the key to the group decisionmaking process, they were carefully scrutinized to ascertain demographic or personality characteristics which might be mediating their behavior. In three experiments, two using college students and one using Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury pool members, it was found that authoritarians changed their attitude regarding the defendant's guilt more than equalitarians. Further, most of these 'changers' were aware they had changed their attitude. There was no generalizable evidence for the proposition that authoritarians are more likely to favor a guilty verdict. Notes and 21 references are included. (Author abstract modified)