Five Factor Model Personality Traits, Jury Selection, and Case Outcomes in Criminal and Civil Cases

Abstract

Actual venire members ( N = 764) completed the Big Five Inventory before going through the jury selection process for 1 of 11 criminal or 17 civil trials. Jury selection decisions by attorneys were not associated with juror personality traits but were associated with juror race and sex, especially in criminal cases. In the 17 juries that deliberated to a verdict ( n = 285), high levels of juror extraversion were associated with not guilty verdicts or verdicts for the defendant, especially in criminal cases. Extraversion was also associated with being selected as a jury foreperson, and foreperson extraversion was associated with longer jury deliberation times and perceived foreperson influence in criminal cases.

Five-Factor Model personality dimensions and right-wing attitudes: Psychological bases of punitive attitudes?

“…Only scarce evidence is yet available on the relationship between the broad bandwidth personality traits and punitive attitudes. The few studies that did investigate this issue mainly focused on capital punishment (Robbers, 2006;Lester & Maggioncalda-Aretz, 1997;McKelvie & Daoussis, 1982;McKelvie, 1983; but for an exception, see Clark et al, 2007). No previous studies have combine broadband personality and social attitudes in a multi-layer model explaining punitive attitudes.…”

“…Since, previous studies found mixed results (Robbers, 2006;Clark et al, 2007;McKelvie & Daoussis, 1982;McKelvie, 1983;Lester & Maggioncalda-Aretz, 1997), we aim to explore all direct and indirect 9 Running Head: PUNITIVE ATITTUDES relationships between broad bandwidth personality factors, social attitudes and punitive attitudes. However, we expect Neuroticism, Extraversion and Openness to experience to be related with Harsh Punishment.…”

“…Furthermore, Openness was shown to predict anti-death penalty attitudes in men, whereas in women Conscientiousness was related to pro-death penalty attitudes and Agreeableness to anti-death penalty attitudes. Clark, Boccaccini, Caillouet and Chaplin (2007) reported that Extraversion is associated with non-guilty verdicts. Other studies only included Neuroticism and Extraversion.…”

Politics in the Courtroom: Political Ideology and Jury Decision Making

“…These studies found that (i) male jurors are more influential on their peers than females (Mills and Bohannon, 1980;Marcus, et. al, 2000), (ii) higher socioeconomic status jurors are more influential (York and Cornwell, 2006), and (iii) more extraverted jurors are more influential (Clark et al, 2007;Marcus et al, 2000). These studies often use small case samples and are based on the 'selected' seated jury.…”

Measuring Risk Attitudes Controlling for Personality Traits

“…Furthermore, research has shown that the Big 5 traits are related to judgment and decision-making across a variety of contexts, including jury decisions (Clark, Boccaccini, Caillouet, and Chaplin, 2007), entrepreneurial business ventures (Wooten, Timmerman, and Folger, 1998), and decisions to engage in risky health-related behaviors (Trobst, Wiggins, Costa, Herbst, McCrae, and Masters, 2000). The Big 5 are purported to affect decision making by influencing confidence/overconfidence in decisions, sensitivity to information from the environment (McElroy and Down, 2007), and heuristic biases (Trobst et al, 2000).…”