Teaching legal psychology as an application of social psychology

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Teaching legal psychology as an application of
social psychology

• Michel Sabourin, Ph.D.
• Dept. of Psychology
• University of Montreal, CANADA

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OUTLINE

• Introduction
• (1) Applying social psychology
• Trial consultation
• Jury selection
• Pretrial attitudes and biases
• Credibility asessment
• Eyewitness testimony

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OUTLINE (contd)

• Pretrial publicity
• Jury deliberation
• Psychological expertise
• (2) Experiential learning
• Conclusion

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Introduction

• During the past twenty years, I have been
  teaching undergraduate classes and graduate
  seminars in legal psychology, assuming as well
  the training and supervision of graduate students
  both in research projects and in the numerous
  applications of psychology to the legal field .

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Introduction

• Two major influences on the core curriculum of my
  lectures and on the delivery method
• (1) the idea developped by Sharon Brehm and Saul
  Kassin (in their Social Psychology textbook) that
  legal psychology is one of the direct
  applications of social psychology
• (2) the need to rely on experiential activities
  to promote learning

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Applying Social Psychology

• Theories and research findings of social
  psychology allow us to increase our understanding
  of settings and problems of the real world
• According to Brehm Kassin (1990 and the
  following editions), three major aplied areas to
  social psychology LAW, BUSINESS and HEALTH

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Applying social psychology

• The applications to law include areas, like (1)
  trial consultation, (2) jury selection, (3)
  pretrial attitudes and biases, (4)credibility
  assessment, (5)eyewitness testimony, (6)pretrial
  publicity, (7) the jury deliberation process and
  (8) psychological expertise
• Each of these areas is linked with specific
  theories and research findings in social
  psychology that students must review

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Applying social psychology

• The trial itself illustrates the profound
  importance of social psychology at work in the
  legal system
• What kinds of people do lawyers select as jurors
  and why ?
• Can eyewitness accurately recall the details of
  traumatic events ?
• How do juries manage to reach unanimous
  decisions, often afer days of deliberation ?

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(1) Trial consultation

• This involves assisting the attorney (in criminal
  cases, the defence lawyer) in the different
  aspects of trial preparation, like, for example,
  evaluation of the evidence and its presentation
  strategy, preparation of the opening statements
  and closing arguments, witness preparation and
  order of appearance, etc

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(1) Trial consultation (contd)

• These different areas link with the following
  social psychology sub-areas
• Persuasion social influences on attitude
• How attitudes are measured
• The link between attitudes and behavior
• Methods of changing attitudes
• Persuasion by means of communication
• Two routes to persuasion
• The source, the message and the audience

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(1) Trial consultation (contd)

• Persuasion by our own actions
• Role playing
• Cognitive dissonance theory
• Alternative routes to self-persuasion
• Most important for the student to master these
  basic areas to better understand and apply them
  to trial consultation

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(2) Jury selection

• Three stage process
• (1) Pool of eligible citizens
• (2) Pretrial examination of prospective jurors
• (3) Peremptory and for cause challenges
• What guides the decision to accept certain
  jurors, while rejecting others ?

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(2) Jury selection (contd)

• From a social psychology standpoint, jury
  selection involves a good knowledge of
• Stereotype formation social categorization,
  outgroup homogeneity bias, illusory correlations,
  subcategorization, contrast effect
• Implicit personality theories
• Impression formation

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(2) Jury selection (contd)

• Prejudice individual differences, authoritarian
  personnality
• Trait differences implicit personality theories
  and the power of first impressions
• Confirmation bias
• Research methods (observation, self-reports,
  surveys, etc)

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(3) Pretrial attitudes and bias

• Systematic jury selection Finding valid and
  objective indicators allowing the lawyer to
  identify individuals coming from the pool of
  potential jurors who will be favorable or neutral
  with respect to the theory of the client
  represented and to reject unfavorable or biased
  individuals
• Verdict prediction depends on the specific issues
  and details of a particular case

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(3) Pretrial attitudes and bias (contd)

• Scientific jury selection involves knowledge of
• Demographics and attitudes relevant to trial
• Confirmation bias and confirmatory hypothesis
  testing
• Kohlbergs stages of moral development
• Research methods

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(4) Credibility assessment

• Identification of the behaviors (nonverbal,
  paralinguistic and verbal) allowing an evaluator
  (judge, police officer, custom officer, etc) to
  distinguish between those telling the truth and
  those lying (or deceiving)

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(4) Credibiity assessment (contd)

• For a better understanding of this concept and
  its applications, the student should master
• The link between attitudes and behavior
• Persuasion by means of communication
• Behavioral observation methods
• Social psychophysiology sympathetic and
  parasympathetic reactions
• Role of scripts and self-schemas

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(5) Eyewitness testimony

• The testimony (or evidence) given by someone
  present during an event who actually saw what
  happened and who is willing to testify in court
  to help the judge or jury arrive at a decision .
  
• General research conclusions (1) eyewitnesses
  are imperfect, (2) many well known factors
  systematically affect their performance, (3)
  judges and juries are usually unaware of these
  factors
• The main cause of wrongful convictions

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(5) Eyewitness testimony (contd)

• Involves the knowledge of
• The three stage process in memory
• (1) acquisition relation between arousal and
  performance (Yerkes-Dodson Law), cross-racial
  identification bias
• (2) storage theory of reconstructive memory
• (3) retrieval line up construction,
  identification, instructions
• Role of self-confidence and accuracy
• Over-estimation of eyewitness accuracy

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(6) Pretrial publicity

• The more information the people have about a case
  from the media, the more likely they are to
  presume the defendant guilty
• Does this information have an impact on jury
  verdict ?
• Pretrial publicity can severely compromise a
  defendants right to a fair trial
• The closest social psychology concept that helps
  better understand whats going on is the power of
  first impressions

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(7) Jury deliberation

• Group deliberation process designed to produce a
  binary decision guilty or not guilty
• Involves a large number of social psychological
  concepts
• Group polarization
• Conformity,
• Majority influence
• Effect of group size, social change, leadership,
  etc

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(8) Psychological expertise

• Expert witnesses individual who testify in court
  on technical matters related to their expertise
• Psychologists are being asked with increasing
  frequency to testify as expert witnesses (mostly
  in custody cases, but also in areas more familiar
  to the social psychologist, like cameras in
  court, eyewitness testimony, trademark
  litigation, etc
• What do we need to know about social psychology
  to become a better expert ?

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(8) Psychological expertise

• An overview of research methods
• Ethics and values in social psychology
• Again, social influence and persuasion
• The expert witness is allowed to voice opinions
  (inference from observed facts), to report
  hearsay, to speculate based on a recognized (even
  if not exact) science

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Promotion of learning through experiental
activities

• In each area that we have just looked at, I have,
  throughout the years, made special efforts to
  design learning activities related directly to
  the issues under scrutiny
• The idea was to supply undergraduates, in some
  cases, and graduate students in other occasions,
  with the chance to live an experience that would
  provide them with a better comprehension of the
  phenomenon

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Trial consultation in real cases

• Since 1985, I have been involved as a consultant
  in over 30 jury (criminal) trials in sometimes
  highly publicized cases
• Each time, I would profit from the occasion to
  involve my graduate students as assistants,
  either for the gathering of data and/or the
  discussions concerning the specific issues of a
  particular case. They would also be present
  during the trial and the debriefings with the
  lawyer

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Trial consultation in real cases

• Various types of services can be offered to help
  lawyers with case preparation
• Organization of a mock trial (from paper
  presentations to highly sophisticated  trial 
  with actors in  real  courtrooms)
• Videotaping (and thorough reviewing) of opening
  statements and closing arguments in light of
  social psychology principles Ex. primacy and
  recency effects, one or two-sided arguments, etc
  

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Trial consultation in real cases

• Goal of these procedures (1) to test the
  reactions of lay persons to the arguments that
  could be used and to identify potential problems
  of comprehension, (2) to gather demographic
  information that can eventually be used for jury
  selection

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Jury selection

• Using systematic jury selection methodology,
  information is gathered through the application
  of survey techniques or by using questionnaires
  with mock jurors and/or results of credibility
  assessments.
• Data collected allow us to define the favorable
  and unfavorable profiles of potential jurors

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Jury selection

• In highly publicized cases, where prejudicial
  information has circulated, data can also be
  provided by using the public opinion poll
  methodology
• Graduate students are involved in the design of
  the questionnaire, the actual polling and the
  data analysis. Thus they learn concretely how
  things are done

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Jury selection

• General scheme of a pretrial survey
• First, spontaneous recall, then recognition.
• Then specific questions concerning attitudes
  toward the arguments to be used by the defense
  and/or the prosecution
• Judgment call on the degree of perceived guilt of
  the accused

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Jury selection

• Measure of general attitude toward certain
  issues, v.g. racial prejudice
• Finally, gathering of socio-demographic data
• Through appropriate statistical analysis
  (multiple regression), possible to establish the
  relation between different variables and draw
  very precise profiles
• Importance of proceeding in a systematic fashion
  for jury selection using data gathered

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Credibility assessment

• Important to know how the accused is perceived to
  enable attorney to decide if he/she will testify,
  since there is no obligation to do so.
• Also important to know the credibility of the
  major witnesses for the prosecution
• In Canada, obligation for the prosecution to
  demonstrate sufficient evidence to support the
  charges laid against the accused during a
  preliminary hearing.This information can be used
  for credibility assessment.

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Credibility assessment

• Also, a videotaped mock interrogation (with a
  cross-examination by a mock prosecutor) of the
  accused can be evaluated for credibility by a
  sample of lay persons
• Test using Adjective Check List devised to
  perform this evaluation both for the witness
  itself and his/her testimony administered to
  large samples and results compiled. Again,
  graduate students are directly involved in data
  collection
• Decisions made are therefore based on empirical
  data

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Credibility assessment

• Same material used for credibility assessment can
  be used to stage a mock trial with balanced
  presentation of the evidence and mock jury
  deliberations
• Multiplied a certain number of times, these mock
  trials provide useful empirical data that can be
  used for jury selection
• Also, in-depth viewing and analysis of the
  videotapes of the mock jury deliberations can be
  very useful to assess proper understanding of
  legal concepts involved

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Credibility assessment

• For teaching purposes with students (in
  psychology or in law school), as well as for
  judges and custom officers, an experiential
  workshop was designed
• First activity gathering information on what
  indicators are spontaneously used by the
  participants to identify truth tellers or liars.
  Degree of confidence of indicators

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Credibility assessment

• Second activity viewing the testimonies (on
  video) of an alleged victim and an alleged
  accused in a  university  case seemingly
  involving sexual harassment. Evaluation of the
  credibility of both and listing of indicators
  used to arrive at conclusion
• Third activity evaluating the pertinence of a
  list of 25 indicators to help identifying truth
  tellers or liars and noting their degree of
  confidence in these indicators.

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Credibility assessment

• Fourth activity Being given a 45-min. lecture
  involving general notions of credibility and
  research results concerning the validity of a
  certain number of indicators (all in previous
  list) to distinguish between liars ans
  truth-tellers
• Fifth activity Results of third activity have
  been compiled and general results (means of the
  group) are presented and discussed. Indications
  are given as to the most valid indicators and
  those who are anecdotic

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Eyewitness testimony

• Two experiments have been designed to enable
  undergraduate students to better grasp the
  reality (and difficulties) surrounding eyewitness
  testimony
• (1) A confederate accomplice knocks and enters my
  classroom with a big problem a specific car is
  blocking his own and needs to be immediately
  removed. It happens to be my car I lend him my
  keys with the promise that they will be returned
  immediately

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Eyewitness testimony

• Doesnt come back after 10 minutes. I call for a
  pause to go see what has happened. Car is stolen.
  University security (other accomplices) is
  called in, and since its too long to interview
  everyone individually, they distribute a paper
  with various questions for proper identification
  of culprit in order to follow up only the sure
  indicators, students are asked to rate their
  degree of certainty concerning the various
  elements of their report.

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Eyewitness testimony

• Once all students have completed the task, I
  inform them that the car theft is a hoax ! The
   culprit  comes back into the room
• Each one then compiles his own report, noting
  number of correct and incorrect items, as well as
  the degree of certainty for each items
• The experiment ends with a long discussion of the
  difficulties surrounding eyewitness
  identification

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Eyewitness testimony

• (2) The second experiment is also presented as a
  true story. A Swedish colleague involved as a
  consultant to the prosecution has asked me to
  evaluate the construction and validity of a
  lineup made by the Stockholm police during the
  inquiry surrounding the assasination of Prime
  Minister Olof Palme in 1986. (True)Reason the
  convicted murderer has appealed to the Swedish
  Supreme Court advocating that the video lineup
  was invalid

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Eyewitness testimony

• Student are asked to view the video of the lineup
  with twelve suspects and to identify who they
  think would be the culprit
• If the lineup is valid, each suspect has one
  chance out of twelve to be chosen. If any one
  suspect or suspects are chosen significantly more
  often than chance, and if the murderer is
  correctly identified, then the video is not valid
• Answers are compiled and there is discussion

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Pretrial publicity

• Usually the main argument for asking for a change
  of venue and/or supporting the need to ask
  questions during the voir dire (selection of
  jurors)
• The large amount of prejudicial publicity in the
  written articles or in media broadcasts is not
  sufficient to show convincingly that a true
  prejudice exists
• There must be a causal relationship

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Pretrial publicity

• Again, this factor is evaluated by means of
  public opinion polling with first, the
  measurement of spontaneous recall, then that
  recognition
• The impact of the most prejudicial informations
  that circulated is evaluated
• Graduate students participate in all stages of
  questionnaire preparation, administration and
  data analysis

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Jury deliberation process

• Following the trial part (or after the
  presentation of evidence by the prosecution and
  the defence and the closing arguments) of a mock
  trial, the mock jurors are given instructions and
  asked to deliberate, as if for real, in a special
  room equiped with video recording

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Jury deliberation process

• Viewing and analysis of these videos is very
  instructive for students (or for lawyers !) with
  regard to what is remembered from the evidence
  presented initially, what is used to reach a
  verdict, what is clear, what is unclear, what is
  understood, what is not understood, how legal
  concepts are interpreted or understood, etc

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Jury deliberation process

• Also, it gives information on how the group
  structures itself and what degree of polarization
  can be witnessed
• Very instructive to look at the way siding
  develops and ultimately, how is consensus reached
• Observing for specific behaviors or arguments (in
  terms of frequency and duration) is also very
  helpful to better understand the deliberation
  process

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Psychological expertise

• Over the years, I have been involved as expert
  witness or consultant not only with criminal jury
  trials, but also in various cases dealing with
  lie detection in civil proceedings, the impact of
  cameras outside the courtroom and presently, with
  the identification and control of vexatious
  litigants (at the request of the Chief Justice)

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Psychological expertise

• In most of these occasions, and whenever
  possible, I have tried to involve my graduate
  students in the discussions surrounding those
  cases, but also in the main activities deriving
  or required by the expertise.
• In a way, its like supervising interns in the
  application of psychology to law

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Conclusion

• We strongly believe that relating concretely
  social psychological concepts to the reality of
  the real world of law enables the students to
  better comprehend sometimes difficult to grasp
  theoretical concepts
• For doing so, involving personnally and
  experientially the learner surely enhances
  significantly the learning process