Sexual Harassment Stories: Testing a Story-Mediated Model of Juror Decisionmaking in Civil Litigation

• NCJ Number: 199245
• Journal: Law and Human Behavior Volume: 27 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2003 Pages: 29-51
• Author(s): Jill E. Huntley; Mark Costanzo
• Date Published: February 2003
• Length: 23 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article discusses the story model of juror decisionmaking in sexual harassment cases.

Abstract

The story model of juror decisionmaking proposes that jurors use personal experience and information presented at trial to create stories that guide their verdicts. The attitudes and experiences that jurors bring with them to the courtroom play a role in determining which stories jurors construct to understand the factors and arguments heard at trial. This research examines how jurors arrive at verdicts in sexual harassment cases. Phase 1 used content analysis to identify the prototypic story themes used by jurors to make sense of information presented during simulated sexual harassment trials. The hypothesis was that defense and plaintiff jurors would reliably endorse different story themes. In Phase 2, the plaintiff and defense themes that emerged in Phase 1 were used as measures of story endorsement. It was hypothesized that the story-mediated model would yield better predictions than would direct juror characteristic-to-verdict or juror attitude-to-verdict models. Data from both studies came from realistic simulated trials using actual case materials, real attorneys, and potential jurors from the actual trial venues. Findings show that plaintiff and defense jurors used different stories to explain the same case. Jurors that endorsed different stories reached different verdicts. The story model of juror decisionmaking appeared to be useful at least in sexual harassment cases. There was support for the hypothesis that there are general prototypes for civil justice concepts as well as for criminal justice concepts, and that these prototypes are used by jurors in reaching verdicts. Findings also demonstrated that, with each dependent variable, the story-mediated model accounted for a much greater proportion of variance than did the unmediated model. 3 figures, 3 tables, 32 references