Lieberman Joel D, Krauss Daniel A, Kyger Mariel, Lehoux Maribeth
Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 455009, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5009, USA.
Behav Sci Law. 2007;25(4):507-26. doi: 10.1002/bsl.771.
Past research examining the effects of expert testimony on the future dangerousness of a defendant in death penalty sentencing found that jurors are more influenced by less scientific clinical expert testimony and tend to devalue scientific actuarial testimony. This study was designed to determine whether these findings extend to civil commitment trials for sexual offenders and to test a theoretical rationale for this effect. In addition, we investigated the influence of a recently developed innovation in risk assessment procedures, Guided Professional Judgment (GPJ) instruments. Consistent with a cognitive-experiential self-theory based explanation, mock jurors motivated to process information in an experiential condition were more influenced by clinical testimony, while mock jurors in a rational mode were more influenced by actuarial testimony. Participants responded to clinical and GPJ testimony in a similar manner. However, participants' gender exerted important interactive effects on dangerousness decisions, with male jurors showing the predicted effect while females did not. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.
过去关于专家证词对死刑量刑中被告未来危险性影响的研究发现，陪审员更容易受到科学性较低的临床专家证词的影响，而倾向于贬低科学性的精算证词。本研究旨在确定这些发现是否适用于性犯罪者的民事收容审判，并检验这种效应的理论依据。此外，我们还研究了风险评估程序中最近开发的一项创新——指导性专业判断（GPJ）工具的影响。与基于认知经验自我理论的解释一致，在经验条件下被激励以经验方式处理信息的模拟陪审员更容易受到临床证词的影响，而处于理性模式的模拟陪审员则更容易受到精算证词的影响。参与者对临床和GPJ证词的反应方式相似。然而，参与者的性别在危险性决策上产生了重要的交互作用，男性陪审员表现出预期的效应，而女性则没有。本文讨论了这些发现的政策含义。
