First, research participants were assessed to see if they were liberal or conservative (based on self-reports and a series of questionnaires to ensure consistency). Those with the strongest political positions (strong liberal and strong conservative) were selected to continue with the study. Then, researchers tested skin conductance changes [as subjects looked at either positive or aversive images] and gaze attraction [what did you look at first and what did you look at longest].

Because we know you are wondering, the aversive images were a spider on a man’s face; an open wound with maggots in it; and a crowd fighting with a man.  The positive images were a happy child; a bowl of fruit; and a cute rabbit. You can see a more detailed description of the study online at Miller-McCune.

What they found is interesting:

Conservatives spent a longer time paying attention to the aversive images and their reactivity to those images was higher. It was as if they could not look away. Were they afraid? They were drawn to the aversive images twice as fast as the liberal participants and spent a much longer time staring at them. But the researchers did not think they were afraid. Instead, the researchers thought “individuals on the political right are not so much ‘fearful’ and ‘vulnerable’ as attuned and attentive to the aversive in life”.

It wasn’t that liberals didn’t look (or as the researchers say, “they did their share of gawking”) they simply didn’t look as long and were more drawn to the positive images.

From a litigation advocacy perspective, this study would indicate that if you are plaintiff and there are gruesome images, conservative jurors are likely going to be more impressed with the potential threat to their safety. Some would say, they might be more influenced by the “reptile approach”.  Know that conservative jurors are going to spend more time dwelling on them than liberal jurors. The open question for you is: “how are these images going to move decision-making, and how can I optimize their impact on my case?” Do the liberal jurors turn away more quickly because they are upset? Are they prone to deny the impact of the image? Do conservative jurors gaze longer because they are immune to the emotional impact, or because they are internalizing a sense of threat and will react more harshly to its cause?  A simple pre-trial focus group can give you insight into what jurors think about the images, as well as insight into the potential value of knowing their conservative or liberal leanings.

It is important to bear in mind that participants in this study were those who were very conservative and very liberal. When we see mock jurors that identify themselves that way–they are often unpredictable and emotionally reactive for idiosyncratic reasons. They are simply not good bets as either pro-defense or pro-plaintiff, as they are prone to seizing on what they see as a key subtlety of the case and making more of it than anyone else thinks makes sense.

Although there is a growing literature similar to this research, and certainly a growing political polarization in the country–don’t rely on this criteria (liberal or conservative) in selecting jurors for your case without knowing where the jurors’ judgements go as they look at the images. As one of a number of criteria, it is likely fine. Alone? It’s dangerous.

Dodd MD, Balzer A, Jacobs CM, Gruszczynski MW, Smith KB, & Hibbing JR (2012). The political left rolls with the good and the political right confronts the bad: connecting physiology and cognition to preferences. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 367 (1589), 640-9 PMID: 22271780

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Some wonder about the timing of this medical record disclosure–saying only a narcissist would leak his medical records at a time like this–shouldn’t we have heard about this when he was running for President? Our friend Charli Morris (a self-described “loyal Democrat”) tells us that the up-close view of this trial from her North Carolina home is not a pretty picture.

John Edwards took a short cut on the long slide from from “golden boy” to “most contemptible”.  Not unlike Newt Gingrich, he had an affair with a woman during his wife’s convalescence from cancer, and is now suffering the complications of having to deal with the stunningly insensitive abandonment. It’s  the ultimate challenge to pretrial publicity. While recent research would say that older jurors might be better for John Edwards, it’s hard to believe that jury selection will be that simple in his case. There are too many wrinkles and caveats and too many negative opinions.

While Gingrich prevailed among the Christian evangelical voters in the South Carolina Republican primary with claims that it was an error of the past brought on by excessive devotion to work(!), Edwards has much bigger problems.  Edwards’ betrayal was relatively recent, with a wife who has consistently been more popular than he is, who died after having been in recovery at the time that the scandal was made public.  While potential jurors may say they are able to be fair, it’s hard to see how most people can put the media information aside completely and offer a verdict based on facts alone.

It’s part of what makes voir dire such a constantly changing puzzle. Everyone tries to find an edge. Whether that edge is assessing social anxiety from Facebook profiles or some other strategy–we all look for clues in the arena of the not easily observed that will lead to a better jury selection. It’s our guess that the Edwards’ defense team is doing extensive pretrial research to identify trial themes, case narratives, and juror experiences that work for them and not against them.

Fernandez, K., Levinson, C., & Rodebaugh, T. (2012). Profiling: Predicting Social Anxiety From Facebook Profiles Social Psychological and Personality Science DOI: 10.1177/1948550611434967

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It is an accepted truism that older people are more conservative than younger people. So it’s interesting to see some research on how pretrial publicity affects older jurors [range = 60-80 years old, average age = 69.5] and younger jurors [range = 18-21 years old, average age = 19]. In this instance, researchers looked at the impact of both positive and negative publicity on mock juror decision-making related to a specific set of case facts.

Mock jurors read either positive or negative pretrial publicity accounts of the case (via mock news articles) and then, one week later, they watched an edited 30 minute video of the trial. (This video was used in previous research and found to be realistic, believable and ambiguous as to guilt. Pretrial publicity is believed to be most important when guilt is ambiguous.) Following viewing of the trial video, they were told to disregard any relevant information from their readings the week before and then they wrote down their individual verdicts.

Older jurors were only affected by positive pretrial publicity.

Younger jurors were only moved by negative pretrial publicity.

In other words, even though the mock jurors were given identical information “pretrial” and then viewed the same video summarizing the trial, they came to very different conclusions. Older jurors were only biased by the positive PTP while younger jurors were more conviction prone than the older jurors only when exposed to negative PTP.

The researchers summarize by saying:

“the same PTP can have a large biasing effect on the decisions made by one age group while having no significant effect on decisions made by the other. [snip]

…these attentional biases [in older adults] may lead to more biased decisions, when the biasing information is positive and less biased decisions when the biasing information is negative”.

They also suggest that this age-related attentional focus may be more important in terms of decision-making than overall liberal or conservative orientation.

What this research would suggest is that when you have negative pretrial publicity, older adults (early Boomers and Silents) are going to make less biased decisions than when they have been exposed to positive pretrial publicity.

If you have a well-known and positively regarded client, older adults are going to be more affected by the ‘halo’ surrounding your client than will younger adults.

If you have a high level of negative publicity and your client is a relative unknown, younger jurors are going to be more swayed (negatively) while older jurors are largely unmoved.

It’s an intriguing finding for us for two different reasons: one is that this is a demographic finding–attitudes and values are almost always more powerful in affecting decision making. The second point is the question of why the older jurors were only moved by the positive PTP. They are, for the most part, more conservative. If they were looking for reasons to be punitive, the negative PTP would be powerful.  Instead, another finding in our analysis of generational research seems to fit: older jurors are happier. They prefer to pay attention to news and information that says ‘the world isn’t so bad after all’. Setting aside our crazy aunt Freda who is fixated on conspiracy theories and Glenn Beck, you can expect older jurors to prefer positive stories, good character, and good manners.

This is an important new study (heading into press now) that we hope will see follow-on research to add nuances to our understanding.  We’ll be watching, and will keep you posted.

Ruva, C., & Hudak, E. (2011). Pretrial publicity and juror age affect mock-juror decision making Psychology, Crime & Law, 1-24 DOI: 10.1080/1068316X.2011.616509

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