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Description
Courthouse dogs (sometimes referred to as facility animals) are expertly trained canines which may be used to assist individuals with psychological, emotional, or physical difficulties in a myriad of courtroom situations. While these animals are increasingly used to assist young witness to court, the jury is still out on whether or not they are prejudicial to the defendant. No known research exists in this area, although research is necessary to determine the possibly prejudicial nature of these animals. Using a mock trial paradigm involving a child sexual abuse case, the current study employed a 2 (Witness type: victim vs. bystander) x 3 (Innovation type: courthouse dog vs. teddy bear vs. none) fully-crossed factorial design. It was hypothesized that witness type and innovation type would interact to differentially impact jurors' judgments about the trial, defendant, and child witness. In addition, it was posited that emotions, such as anger and disgust, would also affect judgments and decision-making. Results indicate that courthouse dogs and comfort toys did impact jurors' decision making in some ways. In addition, emotions and witness credibility predicted sentencing, verdict, and other trial judgments.
ContributorsBurd, Kayla (Author) / Mcquiston, Dawn E (Thesis advisor) / Salerno, Jessica M (Committee member) / Schweitzer, Nicholas J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Protectors who do harm are often punished more severely because their crime is perceived as a betrayal of trust. Two experiments test whether this will generalize to protectors who incur harm while serving in their protective role, and if not, whether collective guilt for the harm they suffered provides an explanation. Study 1 tested competing hypotheses that a veteran (versus civilian) with PTSD would be punished either more harshly because of the trust betrayal, or more leniently because of increased guilt about the harm the veteran suffered during war. Men and women were both more lenient toward a veteran (versus civilian) but this effect was mediated by collective guilt only among men. In Study 2, guilt inductions increased leniency among participants less likely to classify the veteran as an in-group member (women, low national identifiers), but not in those who are more likely to classify the veteran as an in-group member (men, high national identifiers), who were lenient without any guilt inductions.
ContributorsJay, Alexander Charles (Author) / Salerno, Jessica M (Thesis advisor) / Schweitzer, Nicholas (Committee member) / Hall, Deborah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Cultivation theory states that consuming television cultivates a social reality in the real world which aligns with the reality present in television. When the television show CSI was released, researchers studied a form of cultivation stemming from the show titled the "CSI Effect." One of the components of the CSI Effect is the tendency of those who watch CSI to be more likely to overestimate the presence of forensic evidence present in a trial and place more trust in such evidence. In recent years, several true crime documentaries that examined controversial cases have been released. In a similar vein of research conducted on CSI, the current study examines true crime documentaries and their possible impacts on viewers’ judgments and beliefs about the criminal justice system. In the current study, participants were provided with a mock case and asked about their perceptions of the case along with their viewership habits. While overall true crime documentary viewership did not influence judgments of evidence manipulation or perceptions of police, findings point to viewership of the targeted documentaries being associated with feelings of mistrust towards the criminal justice system overall, while the lesser-viewed documentaries correlated with judgments of strength and responsibility of the defendant in the case. One possible explanation is that individual characteristics may serve as the driving factor in how individuals choose what to watch when the popularity of the show is not as well-known.
ContributorsDoughty, Kathryn A (Author) / Schweitzer, Nicholas J. (Thesis advisor) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Having studied at Arizona State University and the W.P. Carey School of Business through approximately 7 semesters of undergraduate business coursework, I, along with my classmates, have learned an incredible amount of knowledge critical for success in a career in business administration. We have been provided the resources and tools necessary to excel in full time business careers, implement new ideas, and innovate and improve preexisting business networks as driven, motivated business intellectuals. Additionally, having worked in four diverse business internships throughout my undergraduate career, I have come to understand the importance of understanding and studying law and contracts as they relate to business. In all of those internships, I worked extensively with a variety of contracts and agreements, all serving critical purposes within each individual line of business. Within supply chain management studies and jobs, I found contracts to be of utmost importance for students to understand prior to entering a full time job or internship. Students study a wide variety of topics during their education within the Supply Chain Management department at Arizona State University. In procurement and purchasing classes specifically, students cover topics from supplier negotiation strategies to sourcing and sustainability. These topics engage students of all backgrounds and offer exceptional knowledge and insight for those seeking a full time job within supply chain management. What is interestingly so often excluded from such lectures is discussion with regards to the contracts and laws pertinent to purchasing and supply management success. As most procurement and sourcing professionals know, contracts are the basis for all agreements that a company and supplier may engage in. A critical component within the careers of supply managers, contract law provides the foundation for any agreement. Thus, the necessity for a discussion on how to best integrate purchasing and contract law into undergraduate supply chain management education, including depicting the material that should be covered, is permitted. In my Honors Thesis, I have decided to create an informative lecture and outline that can be readily understood by undergraduate students in supply chain management courses, at the benefit of professors and lecturers who wish to utilize and incorporate the material in their classroom. The content consists of information recommended by industry professionals, relevant real-life procurement and contract law examples and scenarios, and universal and common law relevant to contracts and purchasing agreements within the workplace. All of these topics are meant to prepare students for careers and internships within supply chain management, and are topics I have found lack current discussion at the university level. Additionally, as a part of my Honors Thesis, I was given the opportunity to provide a cohesive lecture and present the topics herein in SCM 355 Purchasing classes. This was an opportunity to present to students topics that I feel are currently underrepresented in college courses, and that are beneficial for business students to learn and fully understand. Topics discussed in this interactive lecture and slideshow extracted information from the lecture template.
ContributorsPakula, Jacqueline Rose (Author) / Gilmore, Bruce (Thesis director) / Guy, Shannon (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
There is conflicting evidence regarding whether a biasing effect of neuroscientific evidence exists. Early research warned of such bias, but more recent papers dispute such claims, with some suggesting a bias only occurs in situations of relative judgment, but not in situations of absolute judgment. The current studies examined the neuroimage bias within both criminal and civil court case contexts, specifically exploring if a bias is dependent on the context in which the neuroimage evidence is presented (i.e. a single expert vs. opposing experts). In the first experiment 408 participants read a criminal court case summary in which either one expert witness testified (absolute judgment) or two experts testified (relative judgment). The experts presented neurological evidence in the form of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data and the evidence type varied between a brain image and a graph. A neuroimage bias was found, in that jurors who were exposed to two experts were more punitive when the prosecution presented the image and less punitive when the defense did. In the second experiment 240 participants read a summary of a civil court case in which either a single expert witness testified or two experts testified. The experts presented fMRI data to support or refute a claim of chronic pain and the evidence type again varied between image and graph. The expected neuroimage bias was not found, in that jurors were more likely to find in favor of the plaintiff when either side proffered the image, but more likely to find for the defense when only graphs were offered by the experts. These findings suggest that the introduction of neuroimages as evidence may affect jurors punitiveness in criminal cases, as well as liability decisions in civil cases and overall serves to illustrate that the influence of neuroscientific information on legal decision makers is more complex than originally thought.
ContributorsHafdahl, Riquel J (Author) / Schweitzer, Nicholas (Thesis advisor) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
A substantial amount of research has been dedicated to understanding how and why innocent people confess to crimes that they did not commit. Unfortunately, false confessions occur even with the best possible interrogation practices. This study aimed to examine how different types of false confession (voluntary, compliance, and internalization) and the use of jury instructions specific to confessions influences jurors’ verdicts. A sample of 414 participants read a criminal trial case summary that presented one of four reasons why the defendant falsely confessed followed by either the standard jury instruction for confessions or a clarified version. Afterwards, participants completed several items assessing the perceived guilt of the defendant, their attitudes on confessions in general, and their opinions on jury instructions. Although the three confession reasons did not differ among one another, jurors who were given no explanation for the false confession tended to more harshly judge the defendant. Further, the clarified jury instructions did not influence the participants’ judgments. Future research should focus on how expert witness testimonies affect verdicts regarding each type of false confession reason and whether the media may influence a juror’s knowledge of factors that could provoke false confessions.
ContributorsPollack, Andrew Christian (Author) / Schweitzer, Nicholas (Thesis advisor) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
In recent years, the use of biologically based (neurological, neuropsychological, genetic) evidence in criminal trials as support for claims of mental impairments among offenders has increased in popularity. However, research on how exposure to those arguments affects jury decision-making remains unclear. Specifically, arguments rooted in biology sometimes mitigate and sometimes aggravate judgments of criminal responsibility for mentally ill offenders, and this discrepancy seems to stem from the specific conditions by which that disorder was acquired. The following study’s aim was to uncover the precise mechanism(s) behind this elusive effect. Utilizing a 2x2 between subjects experimental design, participants were presented with a hypothetical crime summary involving an offender with either an onset controllable or uncontrollable mental disorder. Ratings of criminal responsibility and other variables hypothesized to function as mediators were obtained after presentation of a prime supporting either a biologically deterministic or free will argument for human behavior in general. Results indicated that when the defendant’s disorder was the result of the his own actions (onset controllable), a biological prime decreased judgments of criminal responsibility; however, when the disorder was caused by factors out of his control (onset uncontrollable), the prime increased judgments of criminal responsibility. An examination of several possible mechanisms finds the effect mediated by the perception of control the defendant could have had over his own actions at the time of the crime. These results suggest that perceptions of behavioral control are an important contributor to jurors’ formation of criminal responsibility judgments when an offender possesses a mental illness; and arguments advocating a biological basis for human behavior reliably affect blame attribution, suggesting that a societal shift in the perception of free will as a result of increased exposure to biology in general may alter the framework of criminal responsibility judgments.
ContributorsHunter, Shelby (Author) / Schweitzer, Nick (Thesis advisor) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / Salerno, Jessica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The legal system relies heavily on the contribution of forensic psychologists. These psychologists give opinions on a defendant’s ability to stand trial, their legal sanity at the time of the crime, their future dangerousness, and their competency to be executed. However, we know little about what extrinsic factors bias these experts. I assessed the influence of gruesome photographs on forensic psychologists’ evaluations of competency and legal sanity. Previous research has demonstrated that these photographs influence lay judgments of guilt. I predicted that gruesome color photographs (versus the same photographs in black-and-white or a textual description of the photographs) would influence forensic psychologists to judge the defendant competent and sane (decisions that might ultimately lead to punishment). I also predicted that this effect would be greater for sanity judgments than for competency judgments. I asked laypeople to make the same decisions in order to compare expert and lay judgments. I predicted that impact of photograph type seen in experts would be greater in the lay sample. No differences in judgments of competence, sanity, or mental illness emerged as a function of the type of visual information, for either expert or lay participants. Experts relied on competency evidence to make competency judgments and insanity evidence to make insanity judgments. In contrast, lay people relied on various types of evidence to make their ultimate judgments. This research suggests that people making competency and sanity judgments might not be biased by gruesome photographs.
ContributorsPhalen, Hannah (Author) / Salerno, Jessica M (Thesis advisor) / Saks, Michael J. (Committee member) / Schweitzer, Nicholas J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
In a trial, jurors are asked to set aside their emotions and make judgments based solely on evidence. Research suggests jurors are not always capable of this, particularly when exposed to gruesome photographic evidence. However, previous research has not looked at the potentially moderating effect of when and for how long jurors are exposed to emotionally disturbing photographs, nor how many photographs they see. In two experiments I tested the impact of the timing of and extent of exposure to gruesome photographs on jurors’ emotions, verdicts, and punishment recommendations. In Study 1, I investigated the effect of timing and exposure duration to a single gruesome photograph of a victim in a murder case (no exposure, brief early exposure, brief late exposure, and prolonged exposure) on mock jurors’ emotions and case judgments. Prolonged exposure (relative to no or brief exposure, regardless of timing) increased disgust, which in turn was associated with harsher punishment. Contrary to previous research, the photograph manipulation did not influence verdicts. The results were mixed and inconclusive regarding brief early versus late exposure. In Study 2, I compared repeatedly viewing a single gruesome photograph to viewing a set of four similar, but unique gruesome photographs—holding the exposure time constant—to assess the impact of quantity of photos on jurors’ emotions and case judgments. Viewing multiple gruesome photos (relative to no photos) led to increase in guilty verdicts through increased disgust, replicating previous research. Viewing a single gruesome photo (relative to no photo) led to increase in guilty verdicts through disgust, differing from Study 1 findings. Viewing multiple gruesome photos and a single gruesome photo led to more disgust, compared to viewing no photo. However, differing from Study 1, gruesome photographs did not lead to an increase in punishment recommendations. There were no significant differences between exposure to a single or multiple gruesome photos on disgust, verdicts, or punishments. Overall, greater exposure to gruesome evidence led to increased disgust and punitiveness, relative to those with less exposure. However, jurors with greater exposure to the same or different photographs did not differ in reported emotions, verdicts, or punitiveness.
ContributorsBean, Samantha Rae (Author) / Salerno, Jessica M (Thesis advisor) / Schweitzer, Nicholas (Committee member) / Duran, Nicholas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Prosecutors’ use of dehumanizing language to describe defendants in their opening and closing statements can often go unchecked. This research aims to assess the effect of dehumanizing language on judgments about Black versus White defendants.Past research has demonstrated the effects of dehumanizing language on lay people's perceptions of out-groups, and how those perceptions can lead to consequential behaviors, prejudice, and even retributive violence and conflict. My first aim is to extend this research to the legal context, more specifically, to address a gap in prior research by randomly assigning participants to read the same closing statement in a murder case with
(a) no dehumanizing language, (b) animalistic dehumanizing language, or (c) mechanistic dehumanizing language to describe either (a) White defendants (Studies 1-2) or (b) Black defendants (Study 2). There has been ample investigation into subtle dehumanization and how it interacts with racial groups, but research has yet to investigate how dehumanized descriptions (both animalistic and mechanistic) of a defendant may influence implicit and explicit perceptions of a defendant and legal outcomes with the inclusion of a race manipulation. I tested the impact of dehumanizing language on participants’ impressions of the defendant, their levels of explicit dehumanization of the defendant specifically and implicit dehumanization of Black versus White targets generally, as well as their ultimate sentencing decisions. I predicted that closing statements including dehumanizing language would lead to greater dehumanization of the defendant and greater likelihood of choosing a death sentence—and that this effect would be greater for Black versus White defendants. I also conducted exploratory tests of the relative impact of animalistic versus mechanistic dehumanization. Investigation into the effects of dehumanization of racial and ethnic groups can help identify underlying psychological causes of racial bias and help to facilitate potential preventative measures in the courtroom.
In this paper, I will report the results from a preliminary study testing the impact of dehumanizing language about a White defendant. I will then report the results from a follow-up study testing the impact of dehumanizing language about a White and a Black defendant.
ContributorsBettis, Taylor (Author) / Salerno, Jessica M (Thesis advisor) / Hall, Deborah (Committee member) / Koop, Greg (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023