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

在性暴力侵犯者（SVP）的审判中，关于性暴力的专家心理学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定的精神疾病，以及他们是否可能对社会构成持续的危险。 到目前为止，只有一个实验研究已经审查了心理专家证词对陪审员决策的影响，在这种情况下。目前的研究旨在建立在PI以前的理论和实验工作调查的影响，心理专家的证词对死刑判决的邪恶性，并将其扩展到性暴力捕食者的判决。先前的研究发现，模拟陪审员更容易受到科学性较低的专家证词的影响，而标准的对抗程序并没有消除这种偏见。其他研究表明，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，并可以抵消陪审员的偏见，使陪审员能够更适当地权衡更科学的证词。对于目前的研究，三种类型的心理专家证词（即，纯粹的临床、精算和指导性专业判断）将根据真实的审判记录创建，并将转换为脚本化的录像带模拟。这种模拟将提交给大学生模拟陪审员和更具代表性的陪审团谁将在他们的决策审议。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理论的有效性、法律上实际的CEST操纵以及影响陪审员决策的预先存在的人格特征 本研究将对本科教学、大学、弱势群体参与研究、心理学和法律的研究社区以及社会产生广泛的影响。本科生将主要负责收集这些实验的数据，一个高级心理学和法律课程（心理学190）将使用这个研究项目作为其主要课题。学生在主要会议上撰写的演讲可能会导致学生的参与，这对主要以教学为重点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审的科学期刊以及跨学科会议上的演讲，向心理和法律的社区广泛传播本研究的结果。研究结果将在心理学界产生重大影响，告知现有的辩论有关适当的评估工具，为陪审员如何处理专家证词，并告知理论文献。

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.