EFFECTS OF PROHIBITIVE AND INFORMATIVE JUDICIAL INSTRUCTIONS ON JURY DECISIONMAKING

Jerry I. Shaw · Paul Skolnick

34 citations0/0 files storedSocial Behavior and Personality An International Journal

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Jury Decision Making Processes Social and Intergroup Psychology Psychology of Social Influence

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the extent to which jurors follow judicial instructions. Based upon Brehm's (1966) theory of psychological reactance, it was hypothesized that prohibitive judicial instructions will not be adhered to as well as similar instructions formulated in a more informative tone. The reactive effects of prohibitive instructions were predicted to be exaggerated when an irrelevant defendant characteristic such as race was an issue. Three hundred and sixteen mock jurors read one of four versions of a hypothetical criminal case varying the type of instructions (prohibitive or informative) and race of defendant (white or black) and rendered both individual judgments and jury verdicts on the case. Results confirmed that juries reacted against prohibitive instructions but more closely followed informative instructions. It was also found that individual jurors were harsher toward white than black defendants, however, group discussion effectively eliminated this reverse racism bias.

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References

1968A Theory of Psychological Reactance 1979Making Legal Language Understandable: A Psycholinguistic Study of Jury Instructions 1977Juridic decisions: In ignorance of the law or in light of it?1976Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt: Effects of concept definition and assigned decision rule on the judgments of mock jurors.1973Effects of inadmissible Evidence on the Decisions of Simulated Jurors: A Moral Dilemma 1989Instructing jurors: A field experiment with written and preliminary instructions.1979On the requirements of proof: The timing of judicial instruction and mock juror verdicts.1977Effects of Inadmissible Evidence and Level of Judicial Admonishment to Disregard on the Judgments of Mock Jurors1

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