Department of Psychology, University of Texas at El Paso, U.S.A.
Behav Sci Law. 2011 May-Jun;29(3):452-66. doi: 10.1002/bsl.970. Epub 2011 Feb 23.
The use of students as mock jurors in the majority of legal psychology studies on jury behavior has been criticized (e.g., Bray & Kerr, 1979; Diamond, 1997). This study examined the degree to which student mock jurors' decisions were generalizable to those of real jurors. The participants of the study included 297 jury-eligible university students and 297 volunteers from the venire in the same community as that in which the students resided. All participants viewed one of six versions of a videotaped criminal trial. The defendant testified in English or in Spanish. In addition, the race of defendant was varied. Three bilingual individuals served as defendants with one appearing to be of northern European origin, one of Latino background, and one of African origin. Dependent variables included verdict and, for those who found the defendant guilty, the number of years to which he should be sentenced, and whether he should be fined. Student mock jurors differed reliably from their community counterparts on several demographic characteristics. However, the two groups had mixed results in relation to decision-making tasks. There was no difference in individual verdict preferences, but the students' sentence recommendations were more punitive. These results are interpreted in the context of the generalizability of mock juror studies.
在大多数关于陪审团行为的法律心理学研究中，使用学生作为模拟陪审员一直受到批评（例如，Bray 和 Kerr，1979；Diamond，1997）。本研究考察了学生模拟陪审员的决策在多大程度上可以推广到真实陪审员的决策。研究参与者包括 297 名有陪审团资格的大学生和 297 名来自与学生居住社区相同的候补陪审员中的志愿者。所有参与者观看了六个版本的录像刑事审判之一。被告用英语或西班牙语作证。此外，被告的种族也有所不同。有三名双语人士担任被告，其中一人看起来是北欧血统，一人是拉丁裔背景，一人是非洲裔。因变量包括判决，以及对于那些认定被告有罪的人，他应该被判处多少年徒刑，以及是否应该罚款。学生模拟陪审员在几个人口统计学特征上与他们的社区对应者存在可靠差异。然而，两组在决策任务方面的结果却有所不同。个人判决偏好没有差异，但学生的量刑建议更具惩罚性。这些结果是在模拟陪审员研究的可推广性的背景下解释的。
