306 posts · 188,729 views
Social science research, current events & jury news all viewed through the lens of litigation advocacy with an emphasis on persuasion, bias, communication, and all phases of case preparation.
Rita Handrich
3 posts
Doug Keene
153 posts
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- January 11, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 479 views
Negotiations: Starting high and ending with nothing
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
In October of 2011, we wrote a blog post on negotiating your salary. That post was based on research advising the negotiator to start “high”. At the time we cautioned against applying this wisdom since it was only one study. Sometimes we are prescient! Or in this case, we were appropriately cautious/skeptical. New research says you [...]
Related posts:
Anchoring effects and your salary negotiations
Don’t ruin the ending for me!
Can reading a story make you a vampire?
... Read more »
Schweinsberg, M., Ku, G., Wang, C., & Pillutla, M. (2012) Starting high and ending with nothing: The role of anchors and power in negotiations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(1), 226-231. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.07.005
- January 9, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 811 views
When are jurors more apt to blame the ‘rogue employee’ than the corporation?
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
This past year, we’ve been intrigued several times to have mock jurors give large corporations a pass and instead place blame on individual employees. While they, in every case, understood that corporations are responsible for the behavior of their employees, they wanted to make it clear they did not blame the company. In a sense, [...]
Related posts:
If your jurors are happy, will they blame the victim less?
Life lessons from mock jurors: Look before you sit & always read the fine print
........ Read more »
Waytz, A., & Young, L. (2011) The Group-Member Mind Trade-Off: Attributing Mind to Groups Versus Group Members. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797611423546
- January 6, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 460 views
Simple Jury Persuasion: Activate their values
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
The first entry in our Simple Jury Persuasion series was titled “There is no such thing as persuasion”. The thesis was that you should craft your story to fit the jurors–rather than trying to pull them in your direction. It’s more than two years (and a lot of posts) later and we still know it to [...]
Related posts:
On Hispanic Jurors: Religiosity and Values
Core values for Americans: What we say but what we do?
Simple Jury Persuasion: Got charisma?
... Read more »
Blankenship, K., & Wegener, D. (2011) Value Activation and Processing of Persuasive Messages. Social Psychological and Personality Science. DOI: 10.1177/1948550611424084
- January 4, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 560 views
Feel the power of that deep and resonant voice!
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Remember our Simple Jury Persuasion post on channeling James Earl Jones? Well, here’s another good reason to use a deep and resonant voice! And (of course) it’s backed up by research published in a peer reviewed journal. As you may recall, earlier research found that women are particularly prone to remember information given to them in [...]
Related posts:
A long tall Texan (and an auto repair shop tale)
... Read more »
Stel, M., van Dijk, E., Smith, P., van Dijk, W., & Djalal, F. (2011) Lowering the Pitch of Your Voice Makes You Feel More Powerful and Think More Abstractly. Social Psychological and Personality Science. DOI: 10.1177/1948550611427610
- January 2, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 620 views
“I like you but I don’t know why”
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
Ahhh….it’s a good thing we know why. We write regularly about increasing likability of your client by making them “like” your jurors. And for the same reason, we cover research about values, attitudes, beliefs, community and family involvement and so on. This research nugget points out another way of making your client “like” the jurors–and [...]
Related posts:
A long tall Texan (and an auto repair shop tale)
Why facts don’t matter
Huge damages and playground logic
... Read more »
Gunaydin, G., Zayas, V., Selcuk, E., & Hazan, C. (2012) I like you but I don’t know why: Objective facial resemblance to significant others influences snap judgments. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 350-353. info:/
- December 28, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 623 views
R-rated pronouns and adjectives?
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
I never heard of the ‘secret life of pronouns’ nor the “dark side of adjectives” when I was growing up. Pronouns and adjectives were staid and predictable parts of speech that I struggled to make sense of in order to diagram sentences in [totally useless] homework assignments. Now, however, we have pronouns revealing hidden meanings and manipulations. [...]
No related posts.... Read more »
Pennebaker, J. (2011) The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us. . Bloomsbury Press. info:/
- December 26, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 676 views
Bitterness, broken hearts, bigots and butchery
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. (Wait! Is that Tammy Wynette I hear?) In our efforts to keep you abreast of the challenges experienced by your female jurors, colleagues, friends, family and clients–here is the latest installment of our intermittent posting on how it can be hard to be a woman. We read about honor [...]
No related posts.... Read more »
Macevoy JP, & Asher SR. (2011) When Friends Disappoint: Boys' and Girls' Responses to Transgressions of Friendship Expectations. Child Development. PMID: 22103441
- December 23, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 452 views
Simple Jury Persuasion: The innuendo effect
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
“I know that’s what he said, but this is what he really meant…!” From early sibling conflicts and on into adulthood, we know the power of innuendo. Now we have academic research findings that corroborate that childhood experience (especially for women). Researchers were curious about how hearing only positive information might still be construed negatively by [...]
No related posts.... Read more »
Kervyn, N., Bergsieker, H., & Fiske, S. (2012) The innuendo effect: Hearing the positive but inferring the negative. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 77-85. info:/
- December 21, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 583 views
If your jurors are happy, will they blame the victim less?
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
This is research that flies in the face of the common wisdom that angry jurors award more damages. It is a long-standing tenet of the research literature that when bad things happen to good people we tend to paradoxically blame the victim. It helps us feel safer to believe the harmed party “must have” done [...]
Related posts:
A long tall Texan (and an auto repair shop tale)
... Read more »
Goldenberg, L., & Forgas, J. (2012) Can happy mood reduce the just world bias? Affective influences on blaming the victim. . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 239-243. info:/
- December 19, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 521 views
Don’t confuse me with your ethnicity!
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
We dislike ambiguity. And most of us don’t like to have to think very hard, either. We’ve written about this as it relates to foreign accents or heavy regional accents with which we are unfamiliar. When we have to work to understand, we assume the speaker is not being truthful. The problem isn’t about us, apparently–it’s [...]
Related posts:
Excuse me while I slip into something more Caucasian
Can you see me now? Different races & familiar places
Derogating do-gooders [like v........ Read more »
Chen, J., & Hamilton, D. (2012) Natural ambiguities: Racial categorization of multiracial individuals. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 152-164. info:/
- December 16, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 3,038 views
Was Sonia Sotomayor right about female judges?
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
One of our early posts on this blog was a response to the furor over the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Essentially, Sotomayor said that our decisions are a complex product of information and our life experiences. We believe this too and were taken aback that so much negative press resulted from her [...]
Related posts:
A long tall Texan (and an auto repair shop tale)
... Read more »
Choi, S., Gulati, M., Holman, M., & Posner, E. (2011) Judging women. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies,, 8(3). info:/
- December 14, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 3,430 views
When you wear glasses you are less attractive but more smart and trustworthy
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
Remember our posts on “the nerd defense”? Essentially, what they said was that wearing glasses resulted in more ‘not guilty’ verdicts for criminal defendants. Of course, the ‘real’ research did not really say that at all. It was more a creation of the popular media (to the chagrin of the researcher involved!). Now, however, we have [...]
Related posts:“The glasses create a kind of unspoken nerd defense.”
Beards and glasses: More ‘small stuff’ you might want to swea........ Read more »
Leder, H., Forster, M., & Gerger, G. (2011) The glasses stereotype revisited: Effects of eyeglasses on perception, recognition, and impression of faces. Swiss Journal of Psychology., 70(4). info:/
- December 12, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 2,952 views
Simple Jury Persuasion: On getting older and wiser!
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Growing older is not for sissies. ‘Some people’ have ‘senior moments’ and then tend to mock ourselves while we secretly worry that it signals the onset of dementia. Many trial lawyers avoid the older juror due to concerns about sleepiness, inability to track the evidence, or simply being checked out during the trial. It isn’t any [...]
Related posts:Simple Jury Persuasion: When to talk about racial bias and when to stay quiet
Simple Jury Persuasion: Got charisma?
Simple Jury Persuas........ Read more »
Worthy DA, Gorlick MA, Pacheco JL, Schnyer DM, & Maddox WT. (2011) With Age Comes Wisdom: Decision Making in Younger and Older Adults. Psychological Science. . PMID: 21960248
- December 7, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 562 views
Expert witness influence: Interrogation tactics and false confessions
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
The public does not believe the innocent falsely confess even in the face of coercive interrogation tactics. And research shows us that once we have a false confession–a domino effect can occur that results in increasing numbers of evidence errors and sometimes, wrongful convictions. Once a confession is given, under any circumstance or for any reason, jurors [...]
Related posts:What I should have said was nothing: The disaster of a false confession
What happens when a juror ag........ Read more »
Blandón-Gitlin, I., Sperry, K., & Leo, R. (2011) Jurors believe interrogation tactics are not likely to elicit false confessions: will expert witness testimony inform them otherwise?. Psychology, Crime , 17(3), 239-260. DOI: 10.1080/10683160903113699
- December 5, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 568 views
Lutherans revisited: Did we dismiss Darrow too soon?
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
Remember Clarence Darrow’s wonderful essay on how to pick a jury? He covers almost every possible stereotype–including religion–in a thorough essay that was then ground-breaking and now a reflection of the wide-reaching stereotypes we attempt to avoid. [A sample from his essay is below with a link to the entire essay.] “Beware of the Lutherans, especially [...]
Related posts:The Jury Room: A new blawg
So help me God
Redux: Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman (........ Read more »
Li YJ, Johnson KA, Cohen AB, Williams MJ, Knowles ED, & Chen Z. (2011) Fundamental(ist) attribution error: Protestants are dispositionally focused. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. PMID: 22082060
- November 23, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 676 views
“Myside bias”: I was wrong and so are you
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
We’ve commented on economists writing about psychological principles before on this blog. We tend to enjoy their different perspective. And we especially enjoyed seeing this retraction in the Atlantic by an economist who learned about a form of bias we see often in the courtroom. Essentially, in the first article, Buturovic and Klein said liberals were less [...]
Related posts:Does ‘death qualification’ systematically bias our juries?
Is racial bias fueling anti-Obama rhetoric?
Propaga........ Read more »
Buturovic, Z., & Klein, D.B. (2010) Economic Enlightenment in Relation to College-going, Ideology, and Other Variables: A Zogby Survey of Americans. Econ Journal Watch. info:/
Shepherd S, & Kay AC. (2011) On the perpetuation of ignorance: System dependence, system justification, and the motivated avoidance of sociopolitical information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. PMID: 22059846
- November 21, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 508 views
Everyone knows you just can’t trust an atheist!
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
Last year we wrote an article on bias against atheists and how to mitigate those biases in court. It was a really interesting paper to research and write, as the vitriol in the bias against atheists is stunningly powerful and (seems to be) permanent. This week we saw an article at Miller-McCune on a new research [...]
Related posts:You’re on trial: Is it better to be an atheist or a black radical Muslim lesbian?
So help me God
Let me assess your genes (it’ll take 20 seconds) to see if I c........ Read more »
Gervais WM, Shariff AF, & Norenzayan A. (2011) Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. PMID: 22059841
- November 16, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 441 views
You killed your spouse. But who is responsible?
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
So if a medical professional prescribes medication to you and that medication is known to have psychiatric side effects, are they responsible when you kill your spouse? The Utah Supreme Court is considering that very question in the case of David Ragsdale (who killed his wife almost three years ago, but says he wouldn’t have [...]
Related posts:Motherhood and Employment: Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace
A new “Too Much Coffee Man”?
It isn’t just about your case…
... Read more »
Sage, W., & Hyman, D. (2011) Do Health Reform and Malpractice Reform Fit Together?. SSRN. info:/
- November 14, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 1,017 views
Simple Jury Persuasion: Can walking to the jury room make jurors forget your evidence?
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
You know how when you leave a room to get something and you arrive in the new room with no idea what you wanted to retrieve? This is sort of like that. But worse. Researchers looked at the act of walking through an open doorway and studied the effect on memory. First, they studied it virtually–having [...]
Related posts:Simple Jury Persuasion: When to hand exhibits to the jurors and when to keep them away!
Simple Jury Persuasion: Channel James Earl Jones
Simple Jury Persuasion: Facts ........ Read more »
Radvansky GA, Krawietz SA, & Tamplin AK. (2011) Walking through doorways causes forgetting: Further explorations. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. , 64(8), 1632-45. PMID: 21563019
- November 9, 2011
- 07:02 AM
- 544 views
The more feminine you appear, the more children you will want
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Or as blogger Scicurious puts it: “it must be science”. Yes. Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. And this time, we turn to the science bloggers for a reaction to some new research. The article abstract begins with this sentence: “Previous studies have shown that women with higher maternal tendencies are shorter and have lower testosterone [...]
Related posts:Redux: Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman (with appreciation to Tammy Wynette, Linda Ronstadt and Anne Reed)
Female bosses can ........ Read more »
Law Smith MJ, Deady DK, Moore FR, Jones BC, Cornwell RE, Stirrat M, Lawson JF, Feinberg DR, & Perrett DI. (2011) Maternal tendencies in women are associated with estrogen levels and facial femininity. Hormones and behavior. PMID: 21983237
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