Exam 18: Application Module- Social Psychology and the Law

Travis is part of a six-person jury on a money laundering case. Although the majority of jury members believe that the defendant is guilty, Travis believes that she did not do it. He tries to convince the others of his perspective. Why might Travis be more successful in making his case if he was part of a typical twelve-person jury, rather than this six-person jury?

Tina is a defense attorney working on a grand larceny (i.e., stealing a large amount of money) case. Given what you know about jury selection concerns, who does Tina NOT want to be placed on the jury?

Vanessa is part of a jury that has to make a unanimous decision to convict the defendant. Yemaya is part of a jury that can convict the defendant with a two-thirds majority rule. What is likely to differ across Vanessa's and Yemaya's juries?

Loftus and Pickrell persuaded the family members of college students to tell stories about when their student relative was five years old, including one "story" that was actually fake and never really happened. How did the students respond?

The goal of the ________ motive is to punish the deed that was committed; the goal of the ________ motive is to prevent future crimes.

Alan is on the jury for a theft-related crime. After hearing the evidence, Alan feels anger toward the defendant and a general sense of outrage. What types of attributions has Alan likely made about the defendant?

Social scientists have differentiated two motives that determine preferences for different kinds of punishment. These motives are

Compare the just desserts and deterrence motives for punishment. In addition, explain how these motives are related to cultural variations in punishment.

The social psychologist Tom Tyler identified three factors that shape our sense of procedural justice. Which of the following is NOT one of those three factors?

We should be careful about trusting eyewitness accounts, because memory is

People's assessments of the fairness of processes leading to legal outcomes is called

In cases in which defendants are convicted and later proved innocent by DNA tests, as many as ________ had falsely confessed to the crime.

Based on your reading, who is likely to receive the harshest sentence for drug possession?

Challenge the idea that eyewitness testimony is accurate and reliable. Describe two research findings that support your argument.

African Americans and Latinos are more likely to be stopped by police officers and receive harsher sentences. This bias in the criminal justice system is largely due to the

The textbook describes research conducted by Loftus and colleagues in which participants were shown pictures of an automobile accident and were asked questions about the pictures. Some participants were asked questions that were consistent with what they actually saw, but some participants were asked misleading questions. Which of the following best describes the results of this research?

Research has shown that merely hearing the questions typically asked in the death-qualification part of jury selection tends to bias potential jurors toward conviction, because

Research conducted by Hastie, Penrod, and Pennington tested whether juries deliberated cases differently based on whether they had to reach a unanimous decision or a majority decision. What did this research show?

Eyewitness errors have been found to be involved in more than ________ percent of cases of wrongful convictions.

Sheila, an attorney, worries that she will be unable to pick good jurors. Instead, she hires a specialist to conduct surveys and compile statistics on what demographic qualities of jurors might predict support for her client. Sheila is using ________ to pick her jury.