Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cognitive Depletion and Motivation to Avoid Prejudice during Jury Deliberation: A Self-Regulation Perspective on Interracial Group Decision-Making

博士论文研究：陪审团审议过程中的认知损耗和避免偏见的动机：跨种族群体决策的自我调节视角

• 批准号: 1535406
• 负责人: Bette Bottoms
• 金额: $ 2.67万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-15 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1535406&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Cognitive; Depletion

Increased diversity in juries ensures representation of ethnic minority voices, but racial diversity presents unique challenges to group deliberations. People find it difficult to interact with people from other racial groups, because they are concerned with appearing prejudiced or with experiencing prejudice from others. People often perform worse on memory and decision tasks after they interact with people of a different ethnicity, because of regulatory depletion -- a decrease in people's ability to control their thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. The more people try to regulate some aspects of their behavior (e.g., expressions of prejudice), the less able they are to regulate other aspects (e.g., focus on the evidence). Yet studies show that, when White jurors deliberate with minority (versus only White) jurors to judge a minority defendant, they actually remember more case facts and are more accurate. This study will test the effects of interracial deliberations and defendant race (i.e., White or African-American) on jurors' cognitive performance and motivation to reach a fair verdict, guided by the hypothesis that jurors' motivation to avoid racial prejudice in verdicts encourages them to perform their duty as jurors well even when the social interactions are depleting. Such research, which increases understanding of the interpersonal and cognitive processes at the heart of jury deliberations, can inform courts, policy makers, and the public, and better explain jurors' verdict decisions and inform court practices. Results can be used to influence policy recommendations about how to maximize the benefits of diversity by reducing depletion in the jury room.Specifically, the proposed experimental research relies on social psychological theories of self-regulation to test a model of group deliberation processes to investigate the effects of ethnic diversity on jury decisions. The strength model of self regulation states that people have limited abilities to regulate their behavior, thoughts, and emotions; therefore, regulatory efforts result in cognitive depletion and diminished performance. Using a self-regulation perspective, the proposed research promises to reconcile two sets of contradictory findings: (a) people are depleted after interacting with individuals from other racial groups (Richeson & Shelton, 2003; Richeson & Trawalter, 2005); (b) mixed-race juries are less racially biased and more thoughtful than all-White juries when they judge an African-American defendant (Bowers, Steiner, & Sandys, 2001; Sommers, 2006). What explains this discrepancy? The present project tests several hypotheses: (a) interracial deliberations are more depleting than racially homogeneous ones; (b) White jurors will be particularly depleted when they have to judge an African American defendant in the presence of African American jurors; but (c) White jurors' motivation to avoid being prejudiced against an African-American defendant (particularly when they deliberate with African-American jurors) would overcome their depletion and ensure they perform their jury task well. In a mock jury deliberation paradigm, juries will include 4 participants and either 2 White or 2 African American confederates, resulting in all-White or mixed juries. Jurors will view evidence from a trial in which the defendant will be presented as either White or African American. Jurors will be instructed about the law, then render individual verdicts, deliberate to reach consensus, and complete measures of regulatory depletion (i.e., Stroop test), memory, motivation to reach a fair verdict, implicit and explicit motivation to avoid prejudice, and impressions of other jurors. Videotaped deliberations will be coded to investigate jurors' focus on evidence and valuable contributions as a function of jury composition and defendant race.

陪审团的日益多样性确保了少数族裔的声音得到代表，但种族多样性对群体审议提出了独特的挑战。人们发现很难与来自其他种族群体的人交往，因为他们担心自己会显得有偏见或受到他人的偏见。在与不同种族的人互动后，人们在记忆和决策任务中的表现往往会更差，这是因为调节损耗-人们控制自己思想，行为和情绪的能力下降。越多的人试图规范他们行为的某些方面（例如，偏见的表达），它们就越不能够规范其他方面（例如，注重证据）。 然而，研究表明，当白色陪审员与少数族裔陪审员（而不是只有白色陪审员）一起审议判决少数族裔被告时，他们实际上记住了更多的案件事实，而且更准确。这项研究将测试种族间审议和被告种族的影响（即，白色或非裔美国人）对陪审员的认知表现和做出公正裁决的动机的影响，其指导假设是，陪审员在裁决中避免种族偏见的动机鼓励他们在社会交往减少的情况下也能很好地履行陪审员的职责。这类研究可以增进对陪审团审议核心的人际和认知过程的理解，可以为法院、政策制定者和公众提供信息，更好地解释陪审员的裁决决定，并为法院实践提供信息。结果可以用来影响政策建议，如何最大限度地减少消耗在jury room.Specifically，建议的实验研究依赖于自我调节的社会心理学理论，以测试一个模型的群体审议过程中，调查陪审团的决定种族多样性的影响。自我调节的强度模型表明，人们调节自己的行为、思想和情绪的能力有限;因此，调节努力会导致认知枯竭和表现下降。使用自我调节的角度来看，拟议中的研究有望调和两套矛盾的结果：（a）人们在与其他种族群体的个人互动后被耗尽（Richeson谢尔顿，2003; Richeson Trawalter，2005）;（B）当他们判断一个非洲裔美国人被告时，混合种族陪审团的种族偏见较少，比全白人陪审团更周到（Bowers，Steiner，Sandys，2001; Sommers，2006）。如何解释这种差异？本项目检验几个假设：（a）种族间的审议比种族单一的审议更耗费精力;（B）当白色陪审员必须在非裔美国人陪审员在场的情况下审判非裔美国人被告时，他们的精力尤其消耗;而是（c）白色陪审员避免对非裔美国被告有偏见的动机（特别是当他们与非洲裔美国陪审员一起审议时）将克服他们的疲惫，并确保他们很好地履行陪审团的任务。在模拟陪审团审议范例中，陪审团将包括4名参与者和2名白色或2名非洲裔美国人联盟，导致全白色或混合陪审团。陪审员将查看审判中的证据，在审判中，被告将作为白色或非洲裔美国人出庭。陪审员将接受法律方面的指导，然后做出个人判决，深思熟虑以达成共识，并完成监管枯竭的措施（即，Stroop测验）、记忆、达成公正裁决的动机、避免偏见的内隐和外显动机以及对其他陪审员的印象。录像审议将被编码，以调查陪审员对证据和有价值的贡献的关注，作为陪审团组成和被告种族的函数。