Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Jury--Decision making.
- All Subjects: Emotions
- Creators: Neal, Tess
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
Lucid dreaming occurs in those who become aware they are dreaming, while still in the dreaming state. Although lucid dreaming has been studied with respect to personality characteristics and as a learned cognitive skill to enhance well-being via processes such as mindfulness, less research has been conducted on relationships between lucid dreaming and emotion. I collected self-reports from a college sample of 262 participants to examine the relationships between lucidity experienced in dreams and emotion regulation, dispositional positive emotions, interoceptive awareness, and mindfulness. Pearson correlations revealed that greater lucidity experienced within dreams was significantly related to more positive emotions, greater interoceptive awareness, and greater mindfulness; however, lucidity was not related to emotion regulation. Furthermore, regression analyses revealed that greater lucidity experienced within dreams predicted more dispositional positive emotions above and beyond emotion regulation and interoceptive awareness. It is important to note that these relationships were tested across people who self-identified as lucid dreamers as well as those who identified as non-lucid dreamers. Overall, lucidity may be beneficial for anyone who recalls his or her dreams, in that higher lucidity was associated with more positive affect during waking. Positive emotions experienced during waking also may translate into greater awareness during dreaming.
ContributorsRosenbusch, Kaylee Michael Ann (Author) / Roberts, Nicole A. (Thesis advisor) / Burleson, Mary H (Committee member) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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
Several states within the United States have recently passed the Victim Life Photo Act, which allows prosecutors to present photographs of alleged murder victims when they were alive during the guilt phase of a trial. Critics argue that these photographs do not offer any relevant information about the crime or the defendant’s potential guilt and might bias jurors to vote guilty based on their sympathy for the victim—perhaps disproportionally so for high-status victims. Two mock trial experiments tested whether online participants who viewed alleged murder victim photographs would convict more because they increase anger, disgust, fear, sadness, and/or sympathy. Mock jurors who saw photographs of White (but not racial minority) victims while they were alive reported more sympathy for the victim relative to those who saw the same evidence without a photograph of the living victim—but the sympathy did not increase convictions (Study 1). Study 2 extended this study by testing whether the living victim photographs are more impactful in conjunction with seeing gruesome photographs of the victim after her death, creating a particularly disturbing contrast effect versus seeing the living photograph alone. Study 2 found that (a) living victim photographs on their own again had no effect on participants’ verdicts, (b) gruesome photographs on their own increased convictions through increased disgust, and (c) participants who saw both living and gruesome murder victim photographs (versus gruesome alone) were more conviction prone due to increased anger and sympathy. These studies inform current debates regarding the controversial Victim Life Photo Act: Admitting living victim photographs during the guilt phase—if presented along with gruesome photographs—can make jurors more sympathetic and angry, which can increase convictions.
ContributorsAdamoli, Madison Marie (Author) / Salerno, Jessica M (Thesis advisor) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / Schweitzer, Nicholas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020