Decision making in civil disputes: The effects of legal role, frame, and perceived chance of winning

Victoria Gilliland and John C. Dunn

Judgment and Decision Making, 2008, vol. 3, issue 7, 512-527

Abstract: The present study investigates the effect of framing and legal role on the propensity to accept a settlement offer by litigants in a simulated legal dispute. Participants were given four different scenarios that factorially combined legal role (plaintiff vs. defendant) and frame (positive vs. negative). The results indicated that positively framed litigants were more willing to settle than negatively framed litigants independently of legal role. These results were replicated in a second experiment that also asked participants to state their subjective probability of winning. This revealed that the propensity to settle was a joint function of frame and the perceived chance of winning. In contrast to previous research, no systematic effect of legal role was found. It is concluded that the rate of negotiated settlements of legal disputes may be increased by manipulating both of these factors.

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i:7:p:512-527_4

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Judgment and Decision Making from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().