Group Decision-Making: An Economic Analysis of Social Influence and Individual Difference in Experimental Juries

Sophia Parkinson and Michelle Baddeley

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: In a jury decision-making, individuals must compromise in order to reach a group consensus. If individuals compromise for non-rational reasons, such as a preference for conformity or due to erroneous information, then the final decision of the group may be biased. This paper presents original experimental data which shows that groups do have a significant tendency to compromise in jury-like settings. Econometric evidence also shows that features of groups, including the generosity of the group overall, will dictate the extent of compromise. The data also reveal that individual traits such as gender and capacity for empathy are associated with the extent of compromise in a jury-type setting. The implications are that interactions between individual and group characteristics limit the objectivity of decision-making.

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: 2011-03-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
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Related works:
Journal Article: Group decision-making: An economic analysis of social influence and individual difference in experimental juries (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:1128

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