Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

experiences, and personal affiliations. These factors

influence the manner in which they understand and

judge the details of the case. Social psychological

research on in-group/out-group bias suggests that

jurors may have an inclination to judge a witness who

is similar to them as more credible and reliable than a

witness who is dissimilar to them. However, research

on the black sheep effect indicates that jurors may per-

ceive in-group members more negatively than out-

group members when the in-group member has

committed a transgression. Therefore, the nature of the

interaction between jurors’ group memberships and the

defendant and witnesses’ group memberships will

depend on the context of the particular case.

Although demographic and personality variables

are not stable predictors of verdict judgments across

cases, research suggests that case-relevant attitudes,

such as death penalty attitudes or attitudes about busi-

ness, predict verdicts. Studies on death penalty atti-

tudes indicate that those who are pro–death penalty

are more likely to render a guilty verdict than those

who are against the death penalty. Finally, some

research indicates that attitudes toward business and

tort reform predict verdicts and awards in civil cases.

Efficacy of Jury Selection

A number of mock jury studies and field studies have

been conducted to investigate the influence of jury

selection strategies on jury verdict. In general, the

research in this area indicates that the evidence

accounts for the greatest amount of variance in juror

verdicts, and that juror’s individual characteristics

account only for approximately 5–15% of the vari-

ance. However, in cases such as capital cases where

defendants have a possibility of receiving the death

penalty, it can be argued that factors influencing this

small percentage of variance become very important

to study. Research has also demonstrated that case-

relevant attitudes, such as attitudes toward the death

penalty or attitudes toward the insanity defense, are

better predictors of verdicts than general attitudes or

demographic characteristics.

Investigating the utility of scientific jury selection

is often done using mock jury simulations. Critics of

this method argue that mock jury studies provide little

practical utility for real jury selection because it is vir-

tually impossible to replicate every aspect of a trial.

Because participants know that their decisions in a

study have no impact on a defendant in a real case,

they may find it easier to render a guilty verdict

because there are no real consequences for doing so.

Jury selection research has not conclusively estab-

lished the superiority of one technique over another, in

part because research in this area is difficult. To demon-

strate that scientific jury selection is efficacious, it is

necessary to establish its superiority over traditional

jury selection and the random selection of jurors.

However, some research suggests that traditional jury

selection may result in a jury with attitudes similar to a

jury composed of the first 12 jurors to be considered for

the jury or a jury that is randomly selected from the jury

pool. Nevertheless, instead of trying to identify which

approach is more useful, it may be possible that a com-

bination of an attorney’s experience and a trial consul-

tant’s advanced research methodology would prove to

be the most effective approach. Because the role of the

jury is an integral part of the legal system, the process

of selecting the jury is important and needs further

empirical evaluation.

F. Caitlin Sothmann, Caroline B. Crocker,

and Margaret Bull Kovera

See alsoScientific Jury Selection; Voir Dire

Further Readings

Batson v. Kentucky, 106 S. Ct. 1712 (1986).

Diamond, S. S., & Zeisel, H. (1974). A courtroom

experiment on juror selection and decision-making.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1,276–277.

Hepburn, J. R. (1980). The objective reality of evidence and

the utility of systematic jury selection. Law and Human

Behaviour, 4,89–101.

Horowitz, I. A. (1980). Juror selection: A comparison of two

methods in several criminal cases. Journal of Applied

Social Psychology, 10,86–99.

Kovera, M. B., Dickinson, J. J., & Cutler, B. L. (2003). Voir

dire and jury selection. In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.),

Handbook of psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology

(pp. 161–175). New York: Wiley.

JURYSIZE AND DECISIONRULE

Both the size of the jury and the number of jurors who

must be in agreement for a verdict to be concluded

(the group’s “social decision rule”) have been the sub-

ject of litigation at the U.S. Supreme Court as well as

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