Mock Juror Decision-Making

(In one study, economists Jeff Biddle and Daniel Hamermesh estimated that for lawyers, such prejudice can translate to a pay cut of as much as 12 percent.) When researchers ask people to evaluate written essays, the same material receives lower ratings for ideas, style and creativity when an accompanying photograph shows a less attractive author. Good-looking professors get better course evaluations from students; teachers in turn rate good-looking students as more intelligent. Not even justice is blind. In studies that simulate legal proceedings, unattractive plaintiffs receive lower damage awards. And in a study released this month, Stephen Ceci and Justin Gunnell, two researchers at Cornell University, gave

In the essay, “Trial Lawyers Cater to Jurors Demands for Visual Evidence,” by Sylvia Hsieh, elicits the symbiotic relationship between trial attorneys and the technological developments used in the court room. He illustrates, how these technical improvements impact the demands and perception of jurors. He also expresses they are reasonably priced, yet faces evidentiary challenges. He engenders the cause and ramifications of technology utilized in the court of law with its added benefits while concluding its pitfalls.

In people’s perspective, attractiveness possess a wide variety of positive personal qualities compared to unattractive people. Result from the study on physical attractiveness stereotypes show the attractive people had the most positive ratings. For example, they are judged as less disturbed, rated as happier and more successful, and more likely to be hired after a job interview. Thus, the concept of attractiveness having a correlation between an individual’s physical appearance and his/her achievements, abilities, psychological well-being and/or other status characteristics to create a perception is

Statistics such as this suggest that defendants who possess traits perceived to be stereotypical of a person of color such as a broad nose, thick lips or a substantially darker complexion, are more likely to receive the death penalty compared to white counterparts accused of committing the same

Juror 6 is the one that changed his mind during the second vote. Juror 6 is an old man who is a bit careful and a bit slow. However, he takes in opinions that appeal to him. When the jurors were discussing why the boy had clearly done it, five had passed and let six go. Six states, “I don’t know. I started to be convinced, you know, with the testimony from those people across the hall”(Rose 20). This clearly states that Juror 6 started to be convinced, but he wasn’t sure all the way. This is an important clue because this is in fact happening in the United States. The Presumption of Innocence is practiced in all U.S. courts, and it states that if one is not completely sure that the defendant is guilty, then they must declare him not-guilty.

The jurors were given a short story to read regarding vehicular manslaughter where the attractiveness and race of the defendant would vary. Than the mock juror was asked to determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant, as well as the recommended sentence the participant would give. The study found that female jurors were harsher on unattractive defendants than they were on their attractive counterparts. Men, on the other hand, tended to find the unattractive female defendants as less guilty than the attractive female defendants. Therefore, the attractiveness of a defendant does play a large role in the juror’s decision

When thinking of a jury, there is a belief that everyone is fair when it comes to making the decision of whether the person being accused of the crime is guilty or not guilty because of the person’s race. What if this belief is not necessarily correct? There have been many instances in whether race has been a factor when the jury makes a decision. According to Baskin, Goldstein, and Sommers (2014), there has been enough evidence to show that racial biases influences the decisions of a jury. In this paper, the articles will show how jury decision-making is influenced by the offender’s race.

Wolf discusses the effect that these standards are having on women in the workplace. A woman’s beauty, or lack of it, can be used against her. In 1986, Mechelle Vinson lost a sexual harassment case. “Vinson was young and ‘beautiful’ and carefully dressed. The district court ruled that her appearance counted against her.” (Wolf 38) “In Hopkins v. Price-Waterhouse, Ms. Hopkins was denied a partnership because she needed to learn to ‘walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely,’ and ‘wear makeup’.” She brought in more business than any other employee. (Wolf 39)

At present, there is no research that has investigated the combined effects of victim race, sexual experience, and alcohol use influencing juror decisions in a rape trial. However, a few studies have examined the joint effects of at least two out of three variables (Dupuis & Clay, 2013; Feild, 1979). As previously mentioned, Field (1979) found that a White victim received the most sympathy from a juror if she was raped by a Black defendant. Thus, the defendant received more punishment. For a Black victim, Black and White defendants received a lesser, yet similar punishment. He also found that sexual experience interacted with the race of the victim, race of the defendant, and the type of rape committed had significantly influenced the jurors. Though Field did not delve much into the joint effect of the race and sexual experience of the victim, he did find other interactions that suggest the answer to this combination. For instance, Field examined the relationship between race of the defendant, victim sexual experience, and victim physical attractiveness. For sexually experienced victims, there was no difference for Black or

Biologists believed that facial symmetry should be attractive because it may signal mate quality. Rhodes, Proffit, Grady and Sumich (1998) manipulated the symmetry to figure out the effect on attractiveness. 4 versions of a picture were created. One was perfectly symmetric, the others were a highly symmetric version, normal level of symmetry and a low symmetric version.64 subjects rated these faces. The results clearly stated that perfect symmetry was significantly more attractive and low symmetry faces were unattractive, more over the males found the perfect symmetric faces more appealing as potential life partners, so facial symmetry does play a role in mate selection. In the second experiment the authors compared the attractiveness of faces at three symmetry levels. These were normal, high and perfect. The subjects were shown two versions of the same face at different

Well Juror #3 talked about his own son that we see the true reason for his bias against the boy. During the trial, Juror 3 talks about how he once saw his own son run away from a fight. I remember him saying " I told him (his son) right out," I'm going bust you up into little pieces for trying." When his son was 15 he him on the face. Which clears how that this guy has huge problems with kids not respecting their father. In my understanding each Juror brings their own life problems into that jury room. We can't control our emotions, we all are human and it's normal to express feelings. One juror was hurting badly leading him to act that way. He misses his son and is very disappointed in his son for such high disrespect towards his father.

The Halo Effect is the cognitive bias that generalizes that if an individual has one outstanding favorable character trait, the rest of that individual’s trait will be favorable. Specific to physical attractiveness, this is known as the “Attractiveness Halo.” Attractiveness plays an important role in determining social interactions. In fact, the physical attractiveness of an individual is a vital social cue utilized by others to evaluate other aspects of that individual’s abilities (Kenealy, Frude, & Shaw, 2001). Because of the attractiveness halo, attractive applicants trying to enter the workforce tend to

Overall people perceived as beautiful have more job opportunities as well as a higher chance for advancement in their carriers. A study was conducted by the University of North Carolina at Pembroke on the topic of the relationship between attractiveness of professors and the perceived quality of their teaching. What the study found out was a strong relationship between the two – “results indicated that as hotness ratings increased, so did ratings on overall quality, clarity, and helpfulness. Additionally, further analysis indicated that the greater the percentage of hotness ratings to overall ratings, the more likely that students rated the professors favorably.” Moreover research shows that attractive people perform better when interviewed. An interesting fact is

A major contribution of this article is that it paves the way for future experiments and empirical studies. The conclusion presented on premia and penalties associated with looks in the article reflect the effect of beauty in all its characteristics, not just one of its many components, such as height, weight, or facial appearance. Future experiment and empirical studies can be built on the layout or techniques presented by this article and can be focused on examining the source of wage differentials and possible discrimination due to a specific characteristic of beauty or various other dimensions such as physical and mental disabilities. Same experiment can also be conducted on data from economies outside of North America to check whether the same premia and penalties of looks exist in other economies.

In a study carried out by Byrne (1971) found that strangers with similar attitudes to participants were rated as being more physically attractive in comparison to participants which had dissimilar attitudes.