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Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory in Jury Decision Making

Polavin, Nicholas Todd
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5610-9721
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1563386792843479

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Communication.
Research on jury decision making is interesting because there is an expectation by the justice system that if jurors take their duty seriously and put effortful cognition into their task, they should be uninfluenced by irrelevant information and reach a fair decision. However, research has shown that although jurors think thoroughly and try to reach a fair decision, they are susceptible to a variety of irrelevant factors. There have been multiple models of jury decision making that have been proposed to account for how jurors reach their decisions, but none seem to be able to fully explain the wide range of irrelevant factors that influence jurors. However, this dissertation argues that cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) is a model of human decision making that also should be applied to juries. This dissertation sets out to give support to CEST as a model of jury decision making. CEST is a decision making theory that posits that humans have two systems of information processing. The first system is a rational system that engages in effortful cognition. The second system is the experiential system that is more based on emotion. This dissertation will support CEST as a model of jury decision making by showing the types of information that are considered based on how jurors process information, how these considerations will influence decisions, which jurors have the ability to update decisions based on new information, and that this model can make accurate predictions regarding these three areas at the state and trait-level. A pretest and study 2 both support CEST’s assertion that people can be engaged two different types of processing at the same time. That is, information processing is not simply a tradeoff between effortful cognition and quick, heuristic based cognition. Because of this, people who are engaged in rational thought can still be influenced by irrelevant factors via the experiential system. Both studies show that jurors will consider different types of information when making their decisions based on the levels of rational and experiential processing they are engaged in. Both studies then attempt to show that based on which factors jurors consider, their decisions may be influenced by irrelevant factors. Study 1 supports this prediction showing that a narrative case presentation is much more persuasive to jurors engaged in high experiential processing than a case presentation that only uses facts and arguments. Additionally, both studies considered together show that jurors engaged in high rational processing are more able to update their decisions after hearing new evidence. In contrast, jurors engaged in high experiential processing have more difficulty updating their decisions after hearing new evidence. The studies presented in this dissertation provide reasonable support for CEST as a model of jury decision making, particularly in comparison to other, more popular models of jury decision making. How these findings support CEST as a model of jury decision making will be discussed, as well as the implications of these results on jury decision making research and the legal field.
Robert Garrett (Advisor)
Zheng Wang (Advisor)
Emily Moyer-Guse (Committee Member)
158 p.
Communication
Jury Decision Making; Decision Making; Persuasion; Cognitive Experiential Self Theory

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Polavin, N. T. (2019). Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory in Jury Decision Making [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1563386792843479

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Polavin, Nicholas. Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory in Jury Decision Making. 2019. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1563386792843479.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Polavin, Nicholas. "Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory in Jury Decision Making." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1563386792843479

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1563386792843479
1,173
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.