Lawrence Megan L, Gittings Kristen L, Hans Valerie P, Campbell John C, Salerno Jessica M
School of Interdisciplinary Forensics, Arizona State University.
Cornell Law School, Cornell University.
Law Hum Behav. 2025 Jun;49(3):186-205. doi: 10.1037/lhb0000610. Epub 2025 May 29.
In an attempt to reduce juror bias, courts across the United States are educating jurors about how implicit bias impacts decision making. We tested whether novel implicit bias interventions-in the form of educational videos or judicial instructions-reduce the relationship between mock jurors' explicit racial biases and their case decisions for Black plaintiffs and/or increase mock jurors' trust in the courts to deliver fair outcomes.
We predicted that mock jurors' increased explicit racial biases would predict less favorable case outcomes for Black plaintiffs but not for White plaintiffs (Studies 1 and 2). We presented competing hypotheses about whether an implicit bias intervention would mitigate, exacerbate, or have no effect on this relationship and explored whether they improved mock jurors' trust in the courts' ability to produce fair outcomes (Study 2).
In Study 1 ( = 407) and Study 2 ( = 1,016), White mock jurors were randomly assigned to judge a civil case with a Black or White plaintiff and then completed measures capturing their implicit and explicit racial biases. In Study 2, mock jurors were also randomly assigned to watch an implicit bias educational video, watch a video of a judge delivering implicit bias instructions, or neither (i.e., control condition).
As hypothesized, mock jurors' increased explicit racial biases predicted less favorable verdicts for Black plaintiffs but not for White plaintiffs. Implicit bias judicial instructions increased pro-plaintiff verdicts and mock jurors' trust in the courts in cases with Black plaintiffs. However, we did not find evidence that educational videos impacted these outcomes, which warrants further study. Neither intervention reduced the relationship between explicit racial bias and verdicts for Black plaintiffs.
Anti-bias judicial instructions might hold some promise but need further testing; implicit bias videos had no impact. In the meantime, court systems must explore additional remedies to achieve an impartial jury. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
为减少陪审员偏见，美国各地的法院正在向陪审员传授内隐偏见如何影响决策。我们测试了新颖的内隐偏见干预措施——以教育视频或司法指示的形式——是否能减少模拟陪审员的显性种族偏见与他们对黑人原告案件裁决之间的关联，和/或是否能增强模拟陪审员对法院做出公正裁决的信任。
我们预测模拟陪审员显性种族偏见的增加会预示黑人原告获得的案件结果更不利，但对白人原告则不然（研究1和研究2）。我们提出了相互竞争的假设，即内隐偏见干预措施是否会减轻、加剧或对此关系没有影响，并探讨这些措施是否能提高模拟陪审员对法院做出公正裁决能力的信任（研究2）。
在研究1（N = 407）和研究2（N = 1,016）中，白人模拟陪审员被随机分配去评判一起有黑人或白人原告的民事案件，然后完成测量他们内隐和显性种族偏见的量表。在研究2中，模拟陪审员还被随机分配观看内隐偏见教育视频、观看法官进行内隐偏见指示的视频，或两者都不看（即控制组）。
如假设的那样，模拟陪审员显性种族偏见的增加预示黑人原告获得的裁决更不利，但对白人原告则不然。内隐偏见司法指示增加了对黑人原告案件的原告有利裁决以及模拟陪审员对法院的信任。然而，我们没有发现证据表明教育视频会影响这些结果，这值得进一步研究。两种干预措施都没有减少显性种族偏见与黑人原告裁决之间的关联。
反偏见司法指示可能有一定前景，但需要进一步测试；内隐偏见视频没有效果。与此同时，法院系统必须探索其他补救措施以实现公正的陪审团。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
