Matching Items (8)
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- All Subjects: psychology
- Genre: Masters Thesis
- Creators: Neal, Tess M.S.
Description
Psychology of justice research has demonstrated that individuals are concerned with both the process and the outcomes of a decision-making event. While the literature has demonstrated the importance of formal and informal aspects of procedural justice and the relevancy of moral values, the present study focuses on introducing a new form of justice: Substantive justice. Substantive justice focuses on how the legal system uses laws to constrain and direct human behavior, specifically focusing on the function and the structure of a law. The psychology of justice literature is missing the vital distinction between laws whose function is to create social opportunities versus threats and between laws structured concretely versus abstractly. In the present experiment, we found that participant evaluations of the fairness of the law, the outcome, and the decision-maker all varied depending on the function and structure of the law used as well as the outcome produced. Specifically, when considering adverse outcomes, individuals perceived laws whose function is to create liability (threats) as being fairer when structured as standards (abstract guidelines) rather than rules (concrete guidelines); however, the opposite is true when considering laws whose function is to create eligibility (opportunities). In juxtaposition, when receiving a favorable outcome, individuals perceived laws whose function is to create liability (threats) as being fairer when defined as rules (concrete guidelines) rather than standards (abstract guidelines).
ContributorsLovis-McMahon, David (Author) / Schweitzer, Nicholas J. (Thesis advisor) / Saks, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Kwan, Sau (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Juror impartiality is necessary for a fair and just legal system, but is true juror impartiality
realistic? The current study investigated the role of implicit and explicit social-cognitive biases in jurors’ conceptualizations of insanity, and the influence of those biases in juror verdict decisions. It was hypothesized that by analyzing the role of implicit and explicit biases in insanity defense cases, jurors’ attitudes towards those with mental illnesses and attitudes towards the insanity defense would influence jurors’ final verdict decisions. Two hundred and two participants completed an online survey which included a trial vignette incorporating an insanity defense (adapted from Maeder et al., 2016), the Insanity Defense Attitude Scale (Skeem, Louden, & Evans, 2004), Community Attitudes Towards the Mentally Ill Scale (Taylor & Dear, 1981), and an Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998). While implicit associations concerning mental illness and dangerousness were significantly related to mock jurors’ verdicts, they no longer were when explicit insanity defense attitudes were added to a more complex model including all measured attitudes and biases. Insanity defense attitudes were significantly related to jurors’ verdicts over and above attitudes about the mentally ill and implicit biases concerning the mentally ill. The potentially biasing impact of jurors’ insanity defense attitudes and the impact of implicit associations about the mentally ill in legal judgments are discussed.
realistic? The current study investigated the role of implicit and explicit social-cognitive biases in jurors’ conceptualizations of insanity, and the influence of those biases in juror verdict decisions. It was hypothesized that by analyzing the role of implicit and explicit biases in insanity defense cases, jurors’ attitudes towards those with mental illnesses and attitudes towards the insanity defense would influence jurors’ final verdict decisions. Two hundred and two participants completed an online survey which included a trial vignette incorporating an insanity defense (adapted from Maeder et al., 2016), the Insanity Defense Attitude Scale (Skeem, Louden, & Evans, 2004), Community Attitudes Towards the Mentally Ill Scale (Taylor & Dear, 1981), and an Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998). While implicit associations concerning mental illness and dangerousness were significantly related to mock jurors’ verdicts, they no longer were when explicit insanity defense attitudes were added to a more complex model including all measured attitudes and biases. Insanity defense attitudes were significantly related to jurors’ verdicts over and above attitudes about the mentally ill and implicit biases concerning the mentally ill. The potentially biasing impact of jurors’ insanity defense attitudes and the impact of implicit associations about the mentally ill in legal judgments are discussed.
ContributorsHamza, Cassandra (Author) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Thesis advisor) / Schweitzer, Nicholas (Committee member) / Hall, Deborah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This experiment uses the Community of Knowledge framework to better understand how jurors interpret new information (Sloman & Rabb, 2016). Participants learned of an ostensibly new scientific finding that was claimed to either be well-understood or not understood by experts. Despite including no additional information, expert understanding led participants to believe that they personally understood the phenomenon, with expert understanding acting as a cue for trustworthiness and believability. This effect was particularly pronounced with low-quality sources. These results are discussed in the context of how information is used by jurors in court, and the implications of the “Community of Knowledge” effect being used by expert witnesses.
ContributorsJones, Ashley C. T. (Author) / Schweitzer, Nicholas J. (Thesis advisor) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Committee member) / Salerno, Jessica M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
When questions about a person’s mental state arise in court, psychologists are often called in to help. Psychological assessment tools are routinely included in these evaluations to inform legal decision making. In accordance with the Daubert standard, which governs the admissibility of expert testimony, courts are obligated to exclude evidence that relies on poor scientific practice, including assessment tools. However, prior research demonstrates that psychological assessment tools with weak psychometric properties are routinely admitted in court, rarely challenged on the basis of their reliability, and if a challenge is indeed raised, often still admitted (Neal et al., 2019). Is neuropsychological assessment evidence in particular vulnerable to the same pitfalls? The present research aimed to 1) quantify the quality of neuropsychological assessment evidence used in court, 2) evaluate whether courts are calibrated to the quality of these tools through the rate and success of legal admissibility challenges raised, and 3) compare forensic mental health evaluators’ experiences and practices with regard to the quality of neuropsychological versus non-neuropsychological assessment tools. Neuropsychological tools appeared to perform worse than non-neuropsychological tools in terms of psychometric quality. However, in a case law analysis, significantly fewer challenges were observed to the legal admissibility of neuropsychological tools than to non-neuropsychological tools. To protect the legitimacy of the legal system and prevent wrongful decisions, it is critical that the evidence on which psychologists’ expert opinions are formed is scientifically valid, and that judges and attorneys adequately scrutinize the quality of evidence introduced in court.
ContributorsMathers, Elizabeth (Author) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Thesis advisor) / Burleson, Mary (Committee member) / Roberts, Nicole (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
The United States Supreme Court’s 1993 Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals case established criteria for admitting scientific evidence in federal courts. It holds that scientific evidence must be valid, reliable, and relevant, and judges are required to be “gatekeepers” of evidence by screening out evidence that has not been empirically tested or vetted through the academic community. Yet, little is known about whether psychological assessment tools are subjected to scrutiny through the standards courts are supposed to apply. In three different studies, from the perspectives of judges, attorneys, and forensic mental health experts, the authors investigate whether psychological assessment evidence is being challenged. Information was collected on participants’ experiences with challenges to psychological assessments. Judges and lawyers completed a series of experimental case vignettes to assess their decision-making about legal admissibility of different qualities of psychological assessments. It was hypothesized they would not distinguish between low- and high-quality psychological assessments in admissibility. Bayesian model selection methods did not support the null hypothesis, however. It was found attorneys differentiate between the conditions. The rates in which legal professionals and forensic mental health evaluators experienced challenges were also higher than was expected. These positive findings show there is some degree of gatekeeping psychological assessment evidence in the courts.
ContributorsNeu Line, Emily C (Author) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Thesis advisor) / Horne, Zachary (Committee member) / Saks, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Biases have been studied in many legal contexts, including sexual assault cases. Sexual assault cases are complex because there are many stages that biases can come into play and have lasting effects on the rest of the case proceedings. One aspect that has not been widely explored is how people perceive institutions’ liability in sexual assault cases based on an obligation to create non-discriminating environments for members and employees according to laws like Title VII and Title IX. The current project focused on how and why cognitive biases affect laypeople’s judgment. Specifically, laypeople’s ability to discern the strength of evidence in civil sexual assault cases against institutions. This was addressed in a series of two studies, with samples collected from Prolific Academic (n = 90) and Arizona State University students (n = 188) for Study 1 (N = 278), and Prolific Academic in Study 2 (N = 449). Both studies used Latin-square design methods, with within and between subject elements, looking at how confirmation bias influenced decisions about whether an institution demonstrated negligence, and thus liability, in the way they responded to sexual assault allegations within their institution. Results from these studies suggest that jurors are overall accurately able to differentiate between weak and strong cases. However, consistent with previous literature, jurors may be susceptible to confirmation bias from outside information (e.g., news stories) and negatively influenced by their personal attitudes (e.g., rape myth acceptance). Given the increased attention of the Me Too movement, these results provide an initial insight into how individuals may be judging these types of cases against institutions.
ContributorsMcCowan, Kristen (Author) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Thesis advisor) / Salerno, Jessica M (Committee member) / Davis, Kelly C (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Cognitive heuristics, or mental shortcuts, sometimes give rise to biases that can influence decision making. These biases may be particularly impactful in a legal context where decision making has lifelong consequences. One such legal decision falls upon social workers who are often tasked with providing custodial recommendations in child custody cases. Across a series of 2 studies, I explored the role of confirmation bias in social worker decision making, the potential value of blinding to reduce bias, as well as social workers’ perceptions of their own biases. Social workers were given detailed case materials describing a custody case between the state and a father. Participants were randomly assigned to read a previous examiner’s positive evaluation of a father, a negative evaluation of the father, or were blinded to a previous examiners rating. Social workers engaged in confirmation bias, such that those who read a positive evaluation of the father viewed him more positively than participants who read a negative evaluation of the father, despite the fact that all of the actual case evidence remained constant. Blinding did not appear to mitigate the bias. In study 2, social workers viewed themselves as less biased than their peers and less biased than other experts in a different field – signifying the presence of a bias blindspot. Together, my findings suggest the need to further explore how bias might affect judgments and also how to mitigate biases, such as making experts aware of their potential for bias.
ContributorsDenne, Emily (Author) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Thesis advisor) / Stolzenberg, Stacia N. (Committee member) / Fabricius, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
For decades, researchers have found that jurors are consistently unable - or unwilling - to disregard inadmissible evidence when instructed to do so by a judge. The legal system ignores the problem entirely: judges have repeatedly affirmed that a judge’s instructions to disregard are a sufficient safeguard of defendants’ constitutional rights, regardless of whether the jury actually disregards the inadmissible evidence. This study tested four interventions derived from psychological research to identify the combination that most effectively helped jurors disregard inadmissible evidence (operationalized by lower conviction rates). It was hypothesized that the most effective interventions identified in Study 1 would yield significantly lower conviction rates when compared to traditional instructions to disregard in Study 2. The interventions were tested in Study 1 using Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) methodology to identify the optimized intervention package through regression analysis. Study 2 served as a randomized controlled trial in which treatment as usual (a judge’s instructions to disregard) was compared to the optimized intervention package. Participants were randomly assigned to either (1) be exposed to no inadmissible evidence, (2) receive inadmissible evidence and treatment as usual, (3) receive inadmissible evidence, treatment as usual and the optimized intervention package, or (4) receive the inadmissible evidence without objection. Logistic regression revealed that jurors who were given an instruction to disregard produced lower conviction rates when they also received the optimized intervention package. Interpretation, limitations, and calls to action are discussed.
ContributorsSandberg, Pamela Nicole (Author) / O'Hara, Karey L. (Thesis advisor) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Committee member) / Hall, Deborah L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023