The Impact of Emotional Appraisals on Juror Decision-Making

458 Pages·2016·2.93 MB·English

Florida International University
FIU Digital Commons
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School
7-3-2013
Twelve Certain Men: The Impact of Emotional
Appraisals on Juror Decision-Making
Stephen W. Joy
Florida International University, [email protected]
DOI:10.25148/etd.FI13080705
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Joy, Stephen W., "Twelve Certain Men: The Impact of Emotional Appraisals on Juror Decision-Making" (2013).FIU Electronic Theses
and Dissertations. 915.
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FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Miami, Florida

TWELVE CERTAIN MEN: THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONAL APPRAISALS ON JUROR
DECISION-MAKING

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
PSYCHOLOGY
by
Stephen W. Joy

2013
To: Dean Kenneth G. Furton
College of Arts and Sciences

This dissertation, written by Stephen W. Joy, and entitled Twelve Certain Men: The Impact of
Emotional Appraisals on Juror Decision-Making, having been approved in respect to style and
intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment.

We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved.

_______________________________________
Steve D. Charman

_______________________________________
Lindsay C. Malloy

_______________________________________
Howard M. Wasserman

_______________________________________
Ryan J. Winter, Major Professor

Date of Defense: July 3, 2013

The dissertation of Stephen W. Joy is approved.

_______________________________________
DDean Kenneth G. Furton
College of Arts and Sciences

_______________________________________
Dean Lakshmi N. Reddi
University Graduate School

Florida International University, 2013

ii
DEDICATION
This undertaking is dedicated to my infinitely patient and loving wife. Thank you for
riding this out and seeing things through with me. I couldn’t have done it without you.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank my primary advisor, Ryan J. Winter for his
invaluable guidance, advice, and tutelage throughout this entire process. I would also like to
thank my committee members Steve D. Charman, Lindsay C. Malloy, and Howard M.
Wasserman for their limitless patience while enduring this lengthy affair.
I must also extend my most sincere gratitude and appreciation to my two research
assistants, Jenice Gonzalez and Paula Jimenez who went above and beyond to code data for me,
often under time pressure and all while fielding incessant emails and worrywart text messages
from me.
Finally, I would like to thank Florida International University for the very generous
Presidential Fellowship. I hope I make you proud.

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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
TWELVE CERTAIN MEN: THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONAL APPRAISALS ON JUROR
DECISION-MAKING
by
Stephen W. Joy
Florida International University, 2013
Miami, Florida
Professor Ryan J. Winter, Major Professor
Our jury system is predicated upon the expectation that jurors engage in systematic
processing when considering evidence and making decisions. They are instructed to interpret
facts and apply the appropriate law in a fair, dispassionate manner, free of all bias, including that
of emotion. However, emotions containing an element of certainty (e.g., anger and happiness,
which require little cognitive effort in determining their source) can often lead people to engage
in superficial, heuristic-based processing. Compare this to uncertain emotions (e.g., hope and
fear, which require people to seek out explanations for their emotional arousal), which instead
has the potential to lead them to engage in deeper, more systematic processing.
The purpose of the current research is in part to confirm past research (Tiedens & Linton,
2001; Semmler & Brewer, 2002) that uncertain emotions (like fear) can influence decision-
making towards a more systematic style of processing, whereas more certain emotional states
(like anger) will lead to a more heuristic style of processing. Studies One, Two, and Three build
upon this prior research with the goal of improving methodological rigor through the use of film
clips to reliably induce emotions, with awareness of testimonial details serving as measures of
processing style.
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The ultimate objective of the current research was to explore this effect in Study Four by
inducing either fear, anger, or neutral emotion in mock jurors, half of whom then followed along
with a trial transcript featuring eight testimonial inconsistencies, while the other participants
followed along with an error-free version of the same transcript. Overall rates of detection for
these inconsistencies was expected to be higher for the uncertain/fearful participants due to their
more effortful processing compared to certain/angry participants. These expectations were not
fulfilled, with significant main effects only for the transcript version (with or without
inconsistencies) on overall inconsistency detection rates. There are a number of plausible
explanations for these results, so further investigation is needed.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Literature Review.................................................................................................................1

II. Civil Justice System Overview ................................................................................9
Legal decision-making ...............................................................................11

III. Cognition and Emotion ..........................................................................................13
Need for cognition .....................................................................................18
History of valence and emotion research ..................................................29
Beyond valence .........................................................................................35
Appraisal theories .....................................................................................37
Uncertainty and certainty appraisals specifically .....................................40
Emotion induction techniques ...................................................................43
Emotions dictating information processing methods and
decision-making ........................................................................................46
Emotional valence directing judgments .....................................................47
Emotions suggesting informational context for decision-making .............47
How specific emotions fit in with processing and decision-making
models ........................................................................................................49

IV. Emotions in Legal Decision-Making .....................................................................53
Certainty and uncertainty appraisals within the legal context ..................56
Types of inconsistencies that jurors may face ..........................................67

V. Study One: Identifying Detection Rates of Individual Inconsistencies .............................70
Method ...............................................................................................................................70
Theoretical Basis ....................................................................................................70
Participants .............................................................................................................76
Design ....................................................................................................................77
Materials ................................................................................................................77
Trial transcript ............................................................................................77
Measures to determine rate of detection for each inconsistency ...............78
Procedure ...............................................................................................................79
Subjective Scoring .................................................................................................80
Results ................................................................................................................................82
Inter-rater Reliability for Subjectively Scored Questions ......................................82
Comparing Overall Detection Rates of Each Inconsistency ..................................82
Discussion ..........................................................................................................................83

VI. Study Two: Verifying Trial Transcript Stimulus Materials ..............................................84
Method ...............................................................................................................................84
Theoretical Basis ....................................................................................................84
Participants .............................................................................................................86
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Design ....................................................................................................................86
Materials ................................................................................................................87
Trial transcript ............................................................................................87
Emotion measures ......................................................................................87
Measures to determine rate of detection for each inconsistency ...............88
Procedure ...............................................................................................................88
Subjective Scoring .................................................................................................89
Results ................................................................................................................................90
Inter-rater Reliability for Subjectively Scored Questions ......................................90
Confirming General Detection Rates of Each Inconsistency ................................91
Measuring Emotional Impact of Trial Transcript ..................................................93
Discussion ..........................................................................................................................94

VII. Study Three: Verifying Emotion Induction Manipulations ...............................................99
Method ...............................................................................................................................99
Theoretical Basis ....................................................................................................99
Participants ...........................................................................................................102
Design ..................................................................................................................102
Materials ..............................................................................................................103
Emotion induction ....................................................................................103
Emotion measure .....................................................................................104
Procedure .............................................................................................................104
Results ..................................................................................................................105
General Effectiveness of Films as Means of Induction ..........................105
Comparing Relative Effectiveness of each Film Clip and Induction
Technique .................................................................................................116
Discussion ............................................................................................................132

VIII. Study Four: Effects of Emotional Appraisals of Certainty on Juror Information
Processing and Decision-Making ....................................................................................132
Method .............................................................................................................................132
Theoretical Basis ..................................................................................................132
Participants ...........................................................................................................133
Design ..................................................................................................................134
Materials ..............................................................................................................135
Session one: trait-based scales ................................................................135
Session two: emotion inductions, trial transcripts, verdict, witness
ratings, inconsistency detection questions, and emotion and
film ratings ..........................................................................................................135
Procedure .............................................................................................................136
Session one: pretesting for trait-based characteristics ...........................136
Session two: emotion and decision-making ...........................................137
Emotion induction .......................................................................138
Trial transcript .............................................................................138
Dependent measures ...................................................................139
Subjective Scoring ...............................................................................................140
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Hypotheses ...........................................................................................................140
Processing style through detection of inconsistencies .............................140
Processing style through witness credibility and persuasiveness
ratings .......................................................................................................141
Exploratory Analyses ...........................................................................................141
Verdict as a result of processing style ......................................................142
Verdict confidence as a result of processing style ...................................143
Rational/experiential processing preference moderating verdict
and detection of inconsistencies ...............................................................144
Results ..............................................................................................................................144
Inter-Rater Reliability for Subjectively Scored Questions ..................................144
Verification of Unequal Rates of Inconsistency Detection Based on
Transcript Version ...............................................................................................145
Effect of Emotion on Rate of Inconsistency Detection .......................................146
Effects of emotion on inconsistency detection according to
question type ............................................................................................149
Effects of emotion on inconsistency detection according to
specific inconsistencies ............................................................................152
Credibility and Persuasiveness Ratings of Witnesses ..........................................155
Assorted Other Dependent Measures ...................................................................160
Discussion ........................................................................................................................160
Theoretical Explanations .....................................................................................161
Methodological Explanations ..............................................................................163

IX. Study Five: Establishing Durability and Duration of Emotion Inductions ......................167
Method .............................................................................................................................167
Theoretical Basis ..................................................................................................167
Participants ...........................................................................................................167
Design ..................................................................................................................169
Materials ..............................................................................................................170
Emotion Measures ...................................................................................170
Procedure .........................................................................................................................170
Results ..............................................................................................................................171
Discussion ........................................................................................................................172

X. Overall Discussion ...........................................................................................................179
Study Limitations and Future Directions .............................................................180

LIST OF REFERENCES .............................................................................................................187

APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................206

VITA ............................................................................................................................................445 
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