RUI:Dangerousness, Expert Testimony, and Juror Decision-Making a Civil Confinement Hearings

在性暴力掠食者（svp）的审判中，关于危险性的专家心理证词是一个关键因素。这些审判允许在性犯罪者完成监禁后对其进行不确定的民事监禁，其依据是犯罪者是否患有法律规定的精神疾病，以及他们是否可能继续对社会构成危险。迄今为止，只有一项实验研究在这种情况下检验了心理专家证词对陪审员决策的影响。目前的研究旨在建立在PI之前的理论和实验工作的基础上，调查心理专家证词对死刑判决危险性的影响，并将其扩展到性暴力掠夺者的裁决。先前的研究发现，模拟陪审员更容易受到不那么科学的专家证词的影响，而标准的对手程序并没有消除这种偏见。另一项研究表明，爱泼斯坦的认知经验自我理论（CEST）可能为这种偏见提供了解释，并意味着抵消陪审员的偏见，使陪审员能够更适当地权衡更科学的证词。在本研究中，将基于真实的庭审记录，创建三种类型的心理专家证词（即纯临床、精算和指导专业判断），并将其转化为脚本化的录像带模拟。这个模拟将呈现给大学生模拟陪审员和更具代表性的陪审团，他们将在决策时进行深思熟虑。将评估陪审员和陪审团在整个审判过程中适当权衡被操纵的专家证词的能力，并测量CEST理论、法律实践CEST操纵和预先存在的人格特征对陪审员决策的影响。拟议的研究将对本科教学、学院、代表性不足群体的研究参与、心理和法律研究界产生广泛影响。和社会。本科生将主要负责收集这些实验的数据，高级心理学和法律课程（心理190）将使用这个研究项目作为其主要主题。学生在主要会议上撰写的报告很可能是学生参与的结果，这对一个主要以教学为中心的机构的学生来说是一个非凡的机会。项目调查人员将通过法律评论和同行评议的科学期刊，以及在跨学科会议上的报告，向心理和法律界广泛传播这项研究的结果。研究结果将对心理学界产生重大影响，为现有的关于危险性评估的适当评估工具的辩论提供信息，并为陪审员如何处理专家证词的理论文献提供信息。

Expert psychological testimony on dangerousness is a key element in the trials of sexually violent predators (SVPs). These trials allow for the indeterminate civil confinement of sexual offenders after they have completed their incarceration, based on whether offenders suffers from a statutorily described mental illnesses and whether they are likely to be a continuing danger to society. To date, only one experimental study has examined the impact of psychological expert testimony on juror decision-making in this context. The present studies are designed to build on the PI's previous theoretical and experimental work investigating the effects of psychological expert testimony on dangerousness in capital sentencing and extend it to sexual violent predator adjudications. Previous research found that mock jurors were more influenced by less scientific expert testimony and that standard adversary procedures did not remove this bias. Additional research suggested that Epstein's Cognitive Experiential Self theory (CEST) may offer an explanation for this bias, and means to counteract jurors' bias allowing jurors to more appropriately weigh more scientific testimony. For the present studies, three types of psychological expert testimony (i.e., pure clinical, actuarial, and guided professional judgment) will be created based on real trial transcripts, and will be transformed into a scripted videotape simulation. This simulation will be presented to both college student mock jurors and more representative juries who will deliberate in their decision-making. The ability of jurors and juries to properly weight the manipulated expert testimony throughout the trial process will be assessed, and the effectiveness of CEST theory, legally practical CEST manipulations, and pre-existing personality characteristics to affect juror decision-making will be measured The proposed research will have broad impact on undergraduate teaching, the college, underrepresented groups' involvement in research, the psychological and legal research communities, and society. Undergraduates will be primarily responsible for collecting the data for these experiments, and an advanced psychology and law class (psych 190) will use this research program as its main topic. Student authored presentations at major conferences will likely result from this student participation, an extraordinary opportunity for students at a primarily teaching-focused institution. The project investigators will disseminate the results of this study broadly to the psychological and legal community through law reviews and peer reviewed scientific journals, and presentations at interdisciplinary conferences. The studies results will have a substantial impact in the psychological community, informing the existing debate concerning appropriate evaluative tools for dangerousness evaluations and informing the theoretical literature on how jurors process expert testimony.