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Secret Weapon: The Chairs in the Jury Box?
Spoiler alert! There are about to be times when you look at the furniture in a courtroom and start either grinning or feeling a sense of dread. It’s like a secret weapon of knowledge that happens to be largely luck of the draw. And we owe this knowledge to our friends who do social sciences research!
Scientific American has recently published a study summary on what is called ‘embodied cognition’. We’ve blogged about this phenomena before and think it’s a really fun fact to know about how our minds work—from the times of Jesus to Shakespeare to now.
The Scientific American study includes this thought-provoking snippet:
“And to see if other, more passively perceived surfaces could affect a person’s mindset, the researchers had volunteers pretend to negotiate the purchase price of a car while sitting in either hard or soft chairs. Those who happened to be sitting in hard chairs seemed to perceive the situation as more rigid, presenting second offers much closer to the original sticker price than those who had been seated in softer seats.”
Does that mean uncomfortable chairs compel passive acceptance? Does it mean that comfortable people are less distracted by their own distress, and are more likely to analyze information thoughtfully? And here’s what we thought.
- If the jury sits on hard chairs during the trial, might that bode well for the prosecution (in a criminal case) or the defendant in a civil trial? It sounds like the research disposes people to be less challenging of authority, even if it is adverse to your own interests.
- Conversely, if the jury sits on soft chairs, might that benefit the plaintiff in a civil trial or the defense in a criminal case? Again, it seems as if the research would have people being more comfortable, and more able to question the information being handed to them.
It’s hard to know. And, of course, you would likely want to visit the deliberations room to see if the surfaces on chairs there mirror those in the jury box in the courtroom or not. Regardless, a visit to your assigned courtroom could be instructive. Our bet is no one would know you were the one placing the cushions on the jury chairs (or removing them).
Related posts:
[...] neurolaw blog post proposes that these findings could suggest uncomfortable chairs may compel passive acceptance and [...]
Secret Weapon: The Chairs in the Jury Box? http://bit.ly/amoYt1
I so knew your blog would be all over this topic – I saw this first on Andrew Sullivan’s blog and I talked about it in the negotiation context,
If you are interested in the negotiation slant, here is our post:
http://www.valanduseconstructionlaw.com/2010/07/articles/litigation/impacting-negotiations-from-round-tables-to-soft-chairs/
Great points in terms of jury application as well. I think a lot of times, many people seem to divide negotiation from trial advocacy and miss the overarching message that both contexts are all about persuasion.
RT @reiserlaw: RT @KeeneTrial: New blog post: Secret Weapon: The Chairs in the Jury Box? http://bit.ly/cilV0W #law #legal #jury #attorney
RT @KeeneTrial: New blog post: Secret Weapon: The Chairs in the Jury Box? http://bit.ly/cilV0W #law #legal #jury #attorney