Biased interpretation of evidence by mock jurors.
Abstract
Predecisional distortion is jurors' biased interpretation of new evidence to support whichever verdict is tentatively favored as a trial progresses. In 2 experiments, students and prospective jurors distorted evidence from a mock trial. Further, the magnitude of prospective jurors' distortion was twice that of students. Consistent with previous research, distortion increased with juror confidence in whichever verdict was currently leading. In spite of clear instructions to ignore prior beliefs, general proplaintiff or prodefendant attitudes influenced the verdicts of prospective jurors, but not of students. These findings suggest that jury instructions should warn against not only premature decisions but also any tentative judgments, lest such opinions influence jurors' evaluations of subsequent evidence. Predecisional distortion in jury trials may lead to biased outcomes resulting from evidence order effects.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The role and impact of sequencing have been demonstrated in multiple domains, including jury decision making and scientific evidence used in the justice and legal systems.
“The role and impact of sequencing have been demonstrated in a number of domains (e.g., Darley & Gross, 1983; Lund, 1925), including in the justice and legal systems, e.g., jury deliberations (Carlson & Russo, 2001; Lawson, 1967).”
From Biased and biasing: the hidden bias cascade and bias snowball effects (2025) · cites this paper as Carlson & Russo, 2001
Cites
Explaining Bargaining Impasse: The Role of Self-Serving Biases
Babcock, L., & Loewenstein, G. (1997) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/jep.11.1.109 · Cited by 1,071 · see citing works
Explaining the evidence: Tests of the Story Model for juror decision making.
Pennington, N., & Hastie, R. (1992) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.62.2.189 · Cited by 761 · see citing works
Pretrial publicity, judicial remedies, and jury bias.
Kramer, G. P., Kerr, N. L., & Carroll, J. S. (1990) · Law and Human Behavior · doi:10.1007/bf01044220 · Cited by 202 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Explaining Bargaining Impasse: The Role of Self-Serving Biases
Babcock, L., & Loewenstein, G. (1997) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/jep.11.1.109 · Cited by 1,071 · see citing works
Curley, L. J., Munro, J., & Dror, I. E. (2022) · Medicine, Science and the Law · doi:10.1177/00258024221080655 · Cited by 80 · see citing works
Town vs. gown: a direct comparison of community residents and student mock jurors.
Hosch, H. M., Culhane, S. E., Tubb, V. A., & Granillo, E. A. (2011) · Behavioral Sciences & the Law · doi:10.1002/bsl.970 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
The effects of deliberations and religious identity on mock jurors’ verdicts.
Miller, M. K., Maskaly, J., Green, M., & Peoples, C. D. (2011) · Group Processes & Intergroup Relations · doi:10.1177/1368430210377458 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Biased and biasing: the hidden bias cascade and bias snowball effects
Dror, I. E. (2025) · Behavioral Sciences · doi:10.3390/bs15040490 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Pretrial publicity and juror age affect mock-juror decision making.
Ruva, C. L., & Hudak, E. M. (2013) · Psychology, Crime & Law · doi:10.1080/1068316x.2011.616509 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Curley, L. J., Murray, J., MacLean, R., Munro, J., Lages, M., Frumkin, L. A., Laybourn, P., & Brown, D. (2022) · Psychiatry, Psychology and Law · doi:10.1080/13218719.2021.1904450 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
- Authors
- Carlson, K. A., & Russo, J. E.
- Affiliations
- Cornell University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied
- Published
- 2001
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 91-103
- ISSN
- 1076-898X (ISSN-L)
- 1939-2192
- OpenAlex
- W2114792912
- Cited by
- 225
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 52.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Law › Jury Decision Making Processes
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Law › Legal processes and jurisprudence
- Keywords
- jury decision-making, mock jurors, jury instructions
- MeSH terms
- Criminal Law, Humans, Judgment, Prejudice, Videotape Recording
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
