Date of Award
2012
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Psychology
Abstract
In 2005, 48,300 state and federal civil jury trials occurred in the United States (National Center for State Courts, 2009). Approximately 15% of the verdicts juries render are inaccurate (Spencer, 2007). Therefore, it is of utmost important to increase juror accuracy. The current thesis investigated jurors' justice efficacy as it relates to persuasion. Mock jurors' levels of justice efficacy were manipulated by giving them false feedback on a moral reasoning task. Participants read a civil trial summary, and received weak or strong statements by potential other jurors. The relation between argument strength and verdict did not depend on the feedback condition. There was a marginally significant Feedback x Initial liability judgment interaction. Participants who received positive feedback were more influenced by the arguments than participants who received negative or no feedback.
Recommended Citation
Kluwe, Katharina, "Justice Efficacy and Argument Strength in Mock Juror Decision-Making in a Civil Trial" (2012). Master's Theses. 722.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/722
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2012 Katharina Kluwe
