A2 Psychology at Spalding Grammar School

How does a courtroom work? This is a formal place with complicated procedures and things like language, clothing and behaviour that go back for centuries. The judge supervises the courtroom, assisted by his clerks and ushers. Lawyers called barristers present the evidence and a decision is made by the twelve men and women of the jury who sit in a "jury box" to the side. Witnesses are called to the "witness box" and questioned by the barristers and sometimes by the judge. All this time, the accused person waits in the "dock" to be told whether they are innocent or guilty. In the UK this is an ADVERSARIAL system, where the barristers argue against each other and try to persuade the jury, but the judge tries to act as a neutral umpire. Some other countries (eg France) have an INQUISITORIAL system, where the judge leads the investigation to discover what actually happened. Click on the image to view a CBBC Newsround site explaining who does what in court.

Your third unit in Forensic Psychology looks at the psychology of the courtroom, the ways in which jurors make decisions and lawyers try to influence them. This is a difficult topic to study because although British trials are always open to the public, things like jury deliberation always go on in private and it's quite illegal to observe what juries do or question why they do it. 

WHAT DO WE KNOW FROM AS?

Several studies or theories from AS Psychology explain why innocent or guilty verdicts get returned:

• MILGRAM (1961) shows the importance of authority figures, especially when they are in prestigious settings and carry symbols of authority. You would expect the wigs, robes and docks in a courtroom to increase the agentic state that Milgram wrote about.
• ROSENHAN (1973) found that people treated other people based on labelling. You would expect the labels given to defendants and witnesses (family man, upstanding citizen, of previously good character, etc) to have a big effect on jurors.
• REICHER & HASLAM (2006) looked at conformity - the pressure people feel to go with the attitudes and values of their group. Jurors have to make a decision about someone's innocence or guilt and will feel a strong pressure to go with the majority.
• GRIFFITHS (1994) studied heuristics, which are "rules of thumb" that speed up decision making and blame attribution. You would expect jurors to use heuristics too, which would make some of their decisions quite irrational.

In general, we can make a few conclusions from our AS studies:

1. BEHAVIOURIST psychologists will focus on the power of associations and rewards and will explain a lot of jury decisions in a very determinist way;
2. COGNITIVE psychologists will try to study the thought processes of jurors- how they weigh up the odds, decide about guilt or judge someone to be trustworthy;
3. SOCIAL psychologists look at the social environment of the courtroom and how jurors are influenced by peer pressure or judge defendants to be part of their "in-group" or members of an "out-group";
4. Psychologists of INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES prefer to look at the characteristics of witnesses or jurors that make them different from everyone else: appearance, intelligence, temperament, background, etc.

The main theme that comes out of this unit is DETERMINISM. Can clever techniques and selecting the right set of jurors guarantee a guilty or innocent verdict? Or can individual jurors take on the majority view and turn it around?

One of the first topics you study is about how to influence the members of a jury to persuade them to find the defendant either innocent or guilty. There are three studies in this topic:

• Order of testimony: Can you bring witnesses out in any old order or is there a particular way of bringing on witnesses that builds a sort of story in the minds of the jurors?
• Persuasion: Witnesses are important, but do jurors put too much faith in them?  This study looks at testimony from an EXPERT WITNESS who might help jurors tell a good witness from a bad one 
• Evidence ruled inadmissable: Not all evidence can be used in court, especially if it was obtained illegally. If the judge declares that a piece of evidence is inadmissable, the jury will be told to ignore it. But do juries ignore inadmissable evidence and does it still affect their verdict?

The next topic in this unit is how juries reach their verdicts. There are three studies in this topic:

• Stages in decision-making: What stages of behaviour do the jury go through between being locked in together to discuss the evidence and emerging with their verdict?
• Majority influence: What pressure can the majority of jurors bring to bear on one or two who don't agree with the majority verdict?
• Minority influence: How successful can one or two jurors be in persuading the majority to change their minds?