Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Investigation of the Psychological Processes Involved in Juror Rehabilitation

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Judges often "rehabilitate" jurors who express inability to be fair during voir dire. The present research examines psychological mechanisms operating during juror rehabilitation. Study 1 investigates the impact of two components of juror rehabilitation (i.e., instruction on the law and elicitation of a public commitment to forgo bias and follow the law) to determine whether the influence of juror rehabilitation is due to informational or normative influences from the judge. Specifically, we will assess whether rehabilitation results in verdicts that are consistent with the evidence or verdicts that are biased toward leniency (as removal of bias in our study would result in a more lenient verdict) irrespective of the evidence. Biased and unbiased participants will be questioned by a judge as part of a mock voir dire and then watch an insanity trial. If rehabilitation has an informational influence on jurors, verdicts should show sensitivity to variations in evidentiary support of an NGRI verdict. Study 2 explores the hypothesis that rehabilitation for bias attributable to prejudicial pretrial publicity (PTP) prompts jurors to engage in thought suppression. As attempts at thought suppression may lead to hyperaccessibility of the banned information, we predict the effect of PTP may be larger when jurors are rehabilitated and cognitively busy. Study 2 also examines an alternative to traditional rehabilitation that emphasizes concentration instead of suppression. In addition to participation in a mock voir dire, jurors in Study 2 will deliberate to a verdict.