Doctoral Dissertation Research: Going By Your Gut: The Influence of Emotion on Perceptions of Liability in Fast Food and Tobacco Litigation

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Doctoral Dissertation Research: Going By Your Gut: The Influence of Emotion on Perceptions of Liability in Fast Food LitigationABSTRACT Recently, there has been a renewed public focus on the issue of obesity in the United States. This focus is warranted as the estimated cost of obesity was $117 billion in the year 2000 alone (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Given the high economic cost of obesity, it is not surprising that legislation and public policies are striving to address the issue. Congress did take a small step toward informing consumers with the Federal Nutritional Labeling and Education Act, which required that companies clearly label nutrition information on all food. However, the legislators exempted restaurants from this requirement (Goldman, 2003). Given the failure of Congress to pass regulations addressing the fast food industry, some plaintiffs have taken the matter into their own hands by filing lawsuits. In addition to compensatory damages, many plaintiffs demand regulation of the fast food industry in the form of nutritional labeling requirements, health warnings, and funds for educational programs that warn the public of the dangers of eating fast food (Goldman, 2003). The plaintiffs may achieve their goals whether they win or lose at court because the threat of liability may be enough for the fast food industry to enact some or all of the measures the plaintiffs are demanding voluntarily. It remains to be seen how the jurors and the public will respond to this litigation and who they will decide is responsible for the harmful effects of obesity. Cognitive appraisal theory proposes that emotion will influence jurors' perceptions of responsibility. It posits that anger leads to attributions of human responsibility, while sadness leads to situational attributions (Keltner, Ellsworth, & Edwards, 1993). This theory has implications for legal situations in which decision-makers determine whether human or situational factors caused the harm. However, cognitive appraisal theory cannot currently predict how emotions influence liability attributions when there are multiple human agents. Research in this area is important because trials with multiple causal factors can often be won or lost on emotional appeals. This project contains two studies, in which participants will read a trial vignette and opening and closing arguments for a fast food litigation case. Study 1 will manipulate anger, while study 2 will manipulate sadness. Each study will be a 3 (type of emotion induction: related to the case, independent from the case, or no emotion) X 3 (emotion target: anti-defendant, anti-plaintiff, no target) design. In the related emotion condition, emotion will be induced through both the opening and closing arguments. In the independent emotion condition, the emotion induction will occur when participants write a detailed autobiographical experience in which they felt angry (sadness in study 2). Anger should increase responsibility attributions toward the plaintiff for participants with anti-plaintiff attitudes and toward the defendant for participants with anti-defendant attitudes. Sadness will increase responsibility attributions toward the situation (away from the defendant for participants who assign human agency to organizations). Broader Impacts: The proposed research has implications for legal decision-making and social policy in two primary ways. First, the economic costs of obesity affect everyone and as a result, emotional reactions to these issues are likely to play a key role in the development of legislation (i.e. regulations on the fast food industry) and litigation. Second, the results of this study can be used to inform the legal system of the potential unintended influence of emotion upon verdicts. Further, the outcomes of the research will be broadly disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and the proceedings of national conferences, as well as in legal newsletters to inform attorneys and legal scholars of the influence emotion has on juror decision-making.