Positive and Negative Pretrial Publicity: The Roles of Impression Formation, Emotion, and Predecisional Distortion

The authors investigated the effects of exposure to pretrial publicity (PTP) on impression formation, juror emotion, and predecisional distortion. Mock jurors read news articles containing negative (antidefendant) PTP or positive (prodefendant) PTP or unrelated articles. One week later, they viewed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Criminal justice and behavior 2011-05, Vol.38 (5), p.511-534
Main Authors: Ruva, Christine L., Guenther, Christina C., Yarbrough, Angela
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Court decisions
Credibility
Criminal justice
Decision making
Distortion
Effects
Emotions
Guilt
Impression formation
Jurors
Murders & murder attempts
News
Perceptions
Positive emotions
Pretrial
Publicity
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Summary:The authors investigated the effects of exposure to pretrial publicity (PTP) on impression formation, juror emotion, and predecisional distortion. Mock jurors read news articles containing negative (antidefendant) PTP or positive (prodefendant) PTP or unrelated articles. One week later, they viewed a videotaped murder trial and then made decisions about guilt. Jurors’ emotions were measured three times during the experiment: before exposure to PTP, immediately after exposure to PTP, and immediately following the trial. Exposure to both positive and negative PTP significantly affected verdicts, perceptions of defendant credibility, emotion (anger and positive emotions), and predecisional distortion. Defendant’s credibility, jurors’ emotions, and predecisional distortion significantly mediated the effect of PTP on guilt ratings.
ISSN:0093-8548
1552-3594
DOI:10.1177/0093854811400823