Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 7, 2026
A Psychophysics Paradigm for the Collection and Analysis of Similarity Judgments
Published on: March 1, 2022
Diverging Decisions? A Comparison of Jury Verdict Procedures
Kayla A Burd1, Valerie P Hans2, Hannah J Phalen1
1Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA.
None:
Courts have the capacity to structure juries' decision making through the use of general verdicts with answers to written questions, special verdicts, and, in some countries, the requirement that juries provide reasons for their verdicts. Little empirical research has explored the impact of special verdicts or a reasoning requirement on juror decision making in comparison to other verdict procedures. In Experiment 1, mock jurors (N = 267) read a summary detailing a case of alleged defamation of a White or Black plaintiff and rendered a verdict (general verdict vs. special verdict vs. two variations of a general verdict procedure with a reasoning requirement). In Experiment 2, mock jurors (N = 292) heard a mock trial while viewing photos of a White or Latinx plaintiff and rendered a verdict (general verdict vs. special verdict with a reasoning requirement) after deliberating as a group. In Experiments 1 and 2, mock jurors who rendered a verdict using a general verdict form were more likely to find for the plaintiff compared to those using a special verdict form (Experiment 1) or a modified special verdict form with reason-giving (Experiment 2).
Related Concept Videos
01:14Decision Making: Traditional Method
First, a specific claim about the population parameter is decided based on the research question and is stated in a simple form. Further, an opposing statement to this claim is also stated. These statements can act as null and alternative hypotheses, out of which a null hypothesis would be a...
01:24Testing a Claim about Population Proportion
There are two methods of testing a claim about a population proportion: (1) Using the sample proportion from the data where a binomial distribution is approximated to the normal distribution and (2) Using the binomial probabilities calculated from the data.
The first method uses normal distribution as an approximation to the binomial distribution. The requirements are as follows: sample size is large...
01:09Decision Making: P-value Method
First, a specific claim about the population parameter is proposed. The claim is based on the research question and is stated in a simple form. Further, an opposing statement to the claim is also stated. These statements can act as null and alternative hypotheses: a null hypothesis would be a neutral statement while the alternative hypothesis can...
01:15One-Way ANOVA: Equal Sample Sizes
Different sample means can result in different values for the variance estimate: variance between samples. This is because the variance between samples is calculated as the product of the sample size and the variance between the...
01:13Multiple Comparison Tests
It would be easy to compare two samples using a significance alpha level of 0.05. In other words, there is only one sample pair to be compared. However, it would be difficult to identify a significantly different sample if the number...
01:16Deductive Reasoning
For example, a researcher can deduce specific predictions...