153 posts · 101,282 views
Doug Keene has a doctoral degree in Psychology and has worked as a trial consultant for the past 15 years. He is Past President of the American Society of Trial Consultants and has a full-service trial consulting practice. Twitter: @keenetrial
The Jury Room
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- September 26, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 200 views
Simple Jury Persuasion: How pictures infer “truthiness”
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
The picture illustrating this post increases the likelihood you will see the post content as true. Enough said. But, you know we’ll say more. This is a fascinating addition to the visual evidence posts already on our blog. We agree that a well-designed visual can raise comprehension for jurors in a complex trial. What this research [...]
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Simple Jury Persuasion: Tattoo you?
Simple Jury Persuasion: The innuendo effect
Simple Jury Persuasion: Activate the ‘intuitive prosecutor’
... Read more »
Newman EJ, Garry M, Bernstein DM, Kantner J, & Lindsay DS. (2012) Nonprobative photographs (or words) inflate truthiness. Psychonomic bulletin . PMID: 22869334
- September 7, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 441 views
Simple Jury Persuasion: Educating jurors about science may have no effect
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
It’s very frustrating to present logical explanations to jurors about science or technology only to have it fall on deaf ears. What we have come to understand is that if you tell a story that jurors relate to, their are globally more receptive and your scientific explanation fits more easily in their day-to-day lives. Hard to accept [...]
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Legare CH, Evans EM, Rosengren KS, & Harris PL. (2012) The coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations across cultures and development. Child development, 83(3), 779-93. PMID: 22417318
- September 5, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 184 views
“Acquired pedophilia”: His brain made him do it
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Our latest entry in the “his brain made him do it” defenses is the long-time pediatrician [Domenico Mattiello] from London who is now accused of making sexual advances toward little girls in his care. Experts will argue in court that a four centimeter tumor at the base of his brain made him do it as it “created [...]
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Burns JM, & Swerdlow RH. (2003) Right orbitofrontal tumor with pedophilia symptom and constructional apraxia sign. Archives of Neurology, 60(3), 437-40. PMID: 12633158
- August 24, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 274 views
Judges are biased in favor of psychopaths whose “brains made them do it”
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Got an upcoming trial and a psychopath for a client? First, please accept our sincere condolences. “Then go to Neurolaw in terms of causation and your client gets a lesser sentence (and returns to society faster)”. Time Magazine has done a thorough writeup on the study and all the various conditions the researchers built in to assess [...]
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Aspinwall LG, Brown TR, & Tabery J. (2012) The double-edged sword: does biomechanism increase or decrease judges' sentencing of psychopaths?. Science (New York, N.Y.), 337(6096), 846-9. PMID: 22904010
- August 20, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 270 views
Tell me it isn’t so! ‘Violinists are still kind of mean and unpredictable’
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
In one of my previous careers, I provided psychotherapy for members of our local philharmonic orchestra. I remember a quiet, introverted and socially awkward viola player who was describing the despicable treatment she endured at the hands of a fellow musician. I inquired as to what she thought the motivation might be for this behavior. [...]
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Clavien C, Tanner CJ, Clément F, & Chapuisat M. (2012) Choosy moral punishers. PloS one, 7(6). PMID: 22720012
- August 15, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 277 views
“The Ideal Man” & ticking off Gen X male consumers
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
“The Player”, “The Beer Drinker” and “The Buddy”. These are tried and true “ideal male images” used by advertisers to attract men to their products and brand. Apparently, it’s not working so well anymore. Researchers say advertisers may need to incorporate “The Dad”, “The Husband” and “The Handyman” or even, “The Mentor” to avoid alienating [...]
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Linda Tuncay Zayer, & Stacy Neier. (2011) An exploration of men's brand relationships. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal. DOI: 10.1108/13522751111099337
- August 10, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 241 views
Simple Jury Persuasion: Telling jurors where to look
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
We’ve written recently about the value of using “human parts” in graphics to direct the jurors eyes. It was a simple lesson. Reality, alas, appears to be more complex. New research says gender matters in terms of gaze direction. That is, men and women focus on different things and are distracted by different things when [...]
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Shen J, & Itti L. (2012) Top-down influences on visual attention during listening are modulated by observer sex. Vision Research, 62-76. PMID: 22728922
- August 6, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 241 views
Judging books by their cover: More on facial clues to character
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Last fall we wrote about facial disfiguration and disgust. As the elections come ever closer, research on assessing character via facial cues is making itself known in the popular media. We all look and judge but we don’t often talk about how we make assumptions based on superficial realities. Recently the Subliminal blog over at Psychology [...]
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Spezio ML, Rangel A, Alvarez RM, O'Doherty JP, Mattes K, Todorov A, Kim H, & Adolphs R. (2008) A neural basis for the effect of candidate appearance on election outcomes. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3(4), 344-52. PMID: 19015087
- August 1, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 276 views
Men: Exude confidence, masculinity, authority, and power!
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Toupees and hair transplants are out. And comb-overs were always out. Now, the real man seen as having leadership potential shaves his head. Sure people will think you are [significantly] less attractive–but they will also think you are taller, stronger, older, more dominant and perhaps most importantly, more of a leader. The research we are [...]
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Mannes, Albert. (2012) Shorn Scalps and Perceptions of Male Dominance. Social Psychological and Personality Science. DOI: 10.1177/1948550612449490
- July 27, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 260 views
Simple Jury Persuasion: “Personalized persuasion”
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
If you read our blog post on checking out jurors’ shoes as part of jury selection, then you understand the longing for a silver bullet in voir dire. It’s like the litigation advocacy version of the quest for the holy grail. You know we didn’t think much of that shoe study for selecting or deselecting your [...]
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Hirsh JB, Kang SK, & Bodenhausen GV. (2012) Personalized persuasion: tailoring persuasive appeals to recipients' personality traits. Psychological Science, 23(6), 578-81. PMID: 22547658
- July 23, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 217 views
What plaintiffs have known for years: “First is best”
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
It’s a long-standing truism. Plaintiffs have an edge with the jury because they go first. The defense has to convince those same jurors that the plaintiff story just isn’t true. What we know based on years of work is that the defense task is not at all impossible. But it can be harder. So this [...]
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Carney, DR, & Banaji, MR. (2012) First is best. PLoS ONE, 7(6). info:/
- July 11, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 215 views
Nice guys really do finish last! (Or at least–not at the top.)
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Another of those lessons on how life just isn’t fair. Apparently there is a collective belief among some (although not universal) that groups reward altruistic behavior by giving people showing altruism positions of leadership, higher rank, recognition, or simple respect. In other words, status is given to the altruist. This belief system fails to explain [...]
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Halevy, N., Chou, EY, Cohen, TR, & Livingston, RW. (2012) Status conferral in intergroup social dilemmas: Behavioral antecedents and consequences of prestige and dominance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(2), 351-366. DOI: 10.1037/a0025515
- July 4, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 324 views
Real men don’t make mistakes
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
We’ve written before about the hazards of being a woman in a gender-incongruent career [like construction]. If you make a mistake, your credibility plummets beyond recovery. New research says men suffer this same fate, but for them, it’s bad if they make a mistake in a gender-congruent career [like construction], too. If a woman in [...]
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Thoroughgood, CN, Sawyer, KB, & Hunter, ST. (2012) Real men don’t make mistakes: Investigating the effects of leader gender, error type, and the occupational context on leader error perceptions. . Journal of Business Psychology. info:/
- June 29, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 226 views
I have good reasons for what I do! You’re just a bad person!
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Ah–the fundamental attribution error. My behavior is explained by situations while yours is explained by your disposition. A simple example: “If Alice saw Bob trip over a rock and fall, Alice might consider Bob to be clumsy or careless (dispositional). If Alice tripped over the same rock herself, she would be more likely to blame the [...]
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Koval, P., Laham., S., Haslam, N., Bastian, B., & Whelan, J. (2012) Our flaws are more human than yours: Ingroup bias in humanizing negative characteristics. . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 283-295. DOI: 10.1177/0146167211423777
Tarrant, M., Branscombe, NR, Warner, RH, & Weston, D. (2012) Social identity and perceptions of torture: It’s moral when we do it. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology., 513-518. info:/
- June 25, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 285 views
“Wide-faced men are going to lie and cheat”
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
We’ve read about aggressive men with thick necks and wide faces. We often suspect them of being violent thugs. Some, more charitably, might opine they are simply more confident and assertive. Or maybe weight-lifters. New research says they are also likely liars and cheaters. Seriously? We all have biases and use stereotypes to make snap judgments [...]
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Stirrat, M., & Perrett, DI. (2012) Face structure predicts cooperation: Men with wider faces are more generous to their in-group when out-group competition is salient. Psychological Science. . DOI: 10.1177/0956797611435133
- June 20, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 293 views
Should you meet with that prospective client first or last?
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Many of us are familiar with the recency effect (which would say be the last meeting) and the primacy effect (which would say don’t be last, be first). This body of research is also sometimes referred to as the “serial position effect” (which basically says, whatever you do, don’t get lost in the middle). Much of the research [...]
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Simonsohn U., & Gino, F. (2012) Daily Horizons: Evidence of Narrow Bracketing in Judgment from 10 years of MBA-admission Interviews. Psychological Science. info:/
- June 4, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 253 views
Should political orientation matter in voir dire?
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
The answer is, “sometimes”. Ultimately, we all tend to favor the side that appears to reflect our values. When jury issues are values driven (often the case) and politics are values driven (as politicians would like us to believe) there can be a nexus. We see and judge the world based on whether it appears [...]
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O'Brien, E., & Ellsworth, P. (2012) More Than Skin Deep: Visceral States Are Not Projected Onto Dissimilar Others. Psychological Science, 23(4), 391-396. DOI: 10.1177/0956797611432179
- June 1, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 318 views
Do great liars know how to tell if you’re lying to them? (Yes, they do!)
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
“Don’t kid a kidder.” It’s a nice way of saying, “don’t lie to a liar”. We all think we are better than most others at identifying deception and generally–we’re only deceiving ourselves in this belief. But here’s a terrific way to become a terrific deception detector: polish up your skills as a liar! Researchers invited participants [...]
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Wright GR, Berry CJ, & Bird G. (2012) "You can't kid a kidder": association between production and detection of deception in an interactive deception task. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 87. PMID: 22529790
- May 18, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 343 views
You don’t have to drink to show intoxicated recall and behavior!
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Last year we blogged about a surprising study showing the recall accuracy of intoxicated witnesses. In that study, research participants who’d been drinking were just as accurate as sober research participants in describing events they had observed. New research, however, aligns more with what we expected regarding perceptual impairment from drinking. Well, sort of… What the research [...]
Related posts:
Arkansas: If a judge calls you a ‘slut’ in open court, it doesn’t show prejudice
Eliot Spitzer, Uncivil Behavior & Possibilities of Redemption
Charlie Sheen or Tiger Woods? When behavior doesn’t fit the image
... Read more »
Stepanova, E., Bartholow, B., Saults, J., & Friedman, R. (2012) Alcohol-related cues promote automatic racial bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.006
- May 14, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 275 views
Nice guys and gals: How much we both get paid
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
So–is it better to be ‘nice’ or ‘mean’ when it comes to salary? We’ll disclose right up front that this is not a feel good post for some of you. As it happens, if you are someone high in agreeableness, (aka ‘nice’) you are likely paid less than someone less agreeable (aka ‘nasty’). There are [...]
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Judge, T., Livingston, B., & Hurst, C. (2012) Do nice guys—and gals—really finish last? The joint effects of sex and agreeableness on income. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(2), 390-407. DOI: 10.1037/a0026021
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