Group decision-making: An economic analysis of social influence and individual difference in experimental juries

Michelle Baddeley and Sophia Parkinson

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2012, vol. 41, issue 5, 558-573

Abstract: In jury decision-making, individual viewpoints must converge to reach a group consensus. Convergence of viewpoints may reflect reasonable compromises, for example if jury deliberations reflect informational influences and social learning which allow individual jurors to correct biases, misunderstandings and/or imperfect recall of evidence. Conversely, some individuals may converge towards others’ viewpoints because of normative influences including peer pressure and preferences for conformity and these can generate biases in the final jury judgements. This paper presents experimental data showing that groups do have a significant tendency to compromise in jury-like settings. Econometric evidence shows that group characteristics, including the presence of acquaintances and strangers within the jury group, affect the extent of compromise. The implications are that jury deliberations may be biased by factors not relevant to a specific case, limiting the objectivity of jury decisions.

Keywords: Herding; Social influence; Legal decision-making; Personality; Behavioural economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D03 D72 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535712000522
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Group Decision-Making: An Economic Analysis of Social Influence and Individual Difference in Experimental Juries (2011)
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:eee:soceco:v:41:y:2012:i:5:p:558-573

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2012.04.023

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza

More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().