Two experiments examined individual and group decision making when decision criteria led to outcomes that violated distributive justice. In Experiment 1, noncompliant individual jurors in a civil trial biased their determinations of negligence to award damages when the decision criteria prohibited an award. Experiment 2 replicated this effect at the group level and revealed that juries also biased their attributions of negligence to justify reducing damages when the decision criteria required an excessive award. In both cases of noncompliance, juries recruited a biased subset of information during deliberations that sustained their decisions. Finally, noncompliant juries were marked by the advent of a “trigger” person who raised justice concerns. Implications for other decision-making groups and for the courts are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Barrett-Howard, E. , & Tyler, T. R. (1986). Procedural justice as a criterion in allocation decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 296-304.
2.
Baumeister, R. F. , & Newman, L. S. (1994). Self-regulation of cognitive inference and decision processes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 3-19.
3.
Bourgeois, M. J. , Horowitz, I. A., ForsterLee, L., & Grahe, J. (1995). Nominal and interactive groups: Effects of preinstruction and deliberations on decisions and evidence recall in complex trials. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 58-67.
4.
Bourgeois, M. J. , Sommer, K. L., & Horowitz, I. A. (1993, May). Civil disobedience in a civil trial? Paper presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association conference, Chicago.
5.
Chaiken, S. , Liberman, A., & Eagly, A. H. (1989). Heuristic and systematic information processing within and beyond the persuasion context. In J. S. Uleman & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), Unintended thought (pp. 212-252). New York: Guilford.
6.
Cialdini, R. B. , Reno, R. R., & Kallgren, C. A. (1990). A focus theory of normative conduct: Recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 1015-1026.
7.
Cropanzano, R. , & Folger, R. (1989). Referent cognitions and task decision autonomy: Beyond equity theory. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 293-299.
8.
Davis, J. H. (1973). Group decision and social interaction: A theory of social decision schemes. Psychological Review, 80, 97-125.
9.
Diamond, S. S. , Casper, J. D., & Ostergren, L. (1989). Blindfolding the jury. Law and Contemporary Problems, 52, 247-268.
10.
Fidel, N. (1991). Preeminently a political institution: The right of Arizona juries to nullify the law of criminal negligence. Arizona State Law Journal, 23, 1-60.
11.
Finkel, N. J. (1995). Commonsense justice: Jurors’ notions of the law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
12.
Frey, D. (1981). Reversible and irreversible decisions: Preference for consonant information as a function of attractiveness of decision alternatives. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 7, 621-626.
13.
Frey, D. (1982). Different levels of cognitive dissonance, information seeking, and information avoidance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 1175-1183.
14.
Frey, D. , & Rosch, M. (1984). Information seeking after decisions: The roles of novelty of information and decision reversibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 10, 91-98.
15.
Frey, D. , Schulz-Hardt, S., Lüthgens, C., & Moscovici, S. (1995). Group homogeneity and groupthink: The influence of preliminary preferences on distorted group decision-making processes. In E. Witte & J. H. Davis (Eds.), Understanding group behavior: Small group processes and interpersonal relations (Vol. 2, pp. 211-225). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
16.
Frey, D. , Schulz-Hardt, S., & Stahlberg, D. (1996). Information seeking among individuals and groups and possible consequences for decision making in business and politics. In E. Witte & J. H. Davis (Eds.), Understanding group behavior: Small group processes and interpersonal relations (Vol. 2, pp. 211-225). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
17.
Gamson, W. A. , Fireman, B., & Rytina, S. (1982). Encounters with unjust authority. Homewood, IL: Dorsey.
18.
Gigone, D. , & Hastie, R. (1997). The impact of information on small group choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 132-140.
19.
Heuer, L. , & Penrod, S. D. (1989). Instructing jurors: A field experiment with written and preliminary instructions. Law & Human Behavior, 13, 409-430.
20.
Homans, G. C. (1961). Social behavior: Its elementary forms. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
21.
Horowitz, I. A. (1985). The effect of jury nullification instruction on verdicts and jury functioning in criminal trials. Law and Human Behavior, 9, 25-36.
22.
Horowitz, I. A. (1988). Jury nullification: The impact of judicial instructions, arguments, and challenges on jury decision making. Law and Human Behavior, 14, 439-453.
23.
Janis, I. L. (1977). Decision making: A psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment. New York: Free Press.
24.
Johnson, B. T. , & Eagly, A. H. (1990). Involvement and persuasion: Types, traditions, and the evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 375-384.
25.
Kadish, M. R. , & Kadish, S. H. (1973). Discretion to disobey. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
26.
Kaplan, M. F. , & Miller, C. (1987). Group discussion and judgment. In P. Paulus (Ed.), Basic group processes (pp. 65-94). New York: Springer-Verlag.
27.
Kaplan, M. F. , & Miller, L. E. (1978). Reducing the effects of juror bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1443-1455.
28.
Kassin, S. M. , & Wrightsman, L. S. (1979). On the requirements of proof: The timing of judicial instruction and mock juror verdicts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1877-1887.
29.
Kerr, N. L. (1993). Stochastic models of jury decision making. In R. Hastie (Ed.), Inside the juror (pp. 116-135). New York: Cambridge University Press.
30.
Kerr, N. L. , & MacCoun, R. J. (1985). The effects of jury size and polling method on the process and product of jury deliberation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 349-363.
31.
Kerr, N. L. , MacCoun, R. J., & Kramer, G. P. (1996a). Bias in judgment: Comparing individuals and groups. Psychological Review, 103, 687-719.
32.
Kerr, N. L. , MacCoun, R. J., & Kramer, G. P. (1996b). “When are Nheads better (or worse) than one?” Biased judgment in individuals versus groups. In E. Witte & J. Davis (Eds.), Understanding group behavior (Vol. 1, pp. 105-136). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
33.
Kerwin, J. , & Shaffer, D. R. (1994). Jurors versus mock juries: The role of deliberations in reactions to inadmissible testimony. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(2), 53-162.
34.
Kruglanski, A. W. , & Mayseless, O. (1988). Contextual effects in hypothesis testing: The role of competing alternatives and epistemic motivations. Social Cognition, 6, 1-20.
35.
Kunda, Z. (1987). Motivated inference: Self-serving generation and evaluation of causal theories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 636-647.
36.
Lamm, H. , & Myers, D. G. (1978). Group-induced polarization of attitudes and behavior. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 11, 145-195.
37.
Laughlin, P. R. , & Ellis, A. L. (1986). Demonstrability and social combination processes on mathematical intellective tasks. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 22, 177-189.
38.
Lind, E. A. , & Tyler, T. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. New York: Plenum.
39.
Lord, C. G. , Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. (1979). Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 2098-2109.
40.
MacCoun, R. J. , & Kerr, N. L. (1988). Asymmetric influence in mock jury deliberation: Jurors’ bias for leniency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 21-33.
41.
Petty, R. E. , & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and persuasion. New York: Springer-Verlag.
42.
Pyszczynski, T. , & Greenberg, J. (1987). Toward an integration of cognitive and motivational perspectives on social inference: A biased hypothesis-testing model. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 20). San Diego: Academic Press.
43.
Rakove, J. N. (1996). Original meanings: Politics and ideas in the making of the Constitution. New York: Knopf.
44.
Reno, R. R. , Cialdini, R. B., & Kallgren, C. A. (1993). The transsituational influence of social norms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 104-112.
45.
Saks, M. J. (1981). Small-group decision making and complex information tasks. Washington, DC: Federal Judicial Center.
46.
Sanbonmatsu, D. M. , & Fazio, R. H. (1990). The role of attitudes in memory-based decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 614-622.
47.
Skarlicki, D. P. , & Folger, R. (1997). Retaliation in the workplace: The roles of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 434-443.
48.
Sommer, K. L. , Bourgeois, M. J., & Horowitz, I. A. (1994, March). Non-compliance as a form of jury nullification. Paper presented at the American Psychology-Law Society conference, Santa Fe, NM.
49.
Stasser, G. , & Stewart, G. (1992). Discovery of hidden profiles by decision-making groups: Solving a problem versus making a judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 426-434.
50.
Stasser, G. , & Titus, W. (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision making: Biased information sampling during discussion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1467-1478.
51.
Tindale, R. S. , Davis, J. H., Vollrath, D. A., Nagao, D. H., & Hinsz, V. B. (1990). Asymmetrical social influence in freely interacting groups: A test of three models. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 438-449.
52.
Tindale, R. S. , Smith, C. M., Thomas, L. S., Filkins, J., & Sheffey, S. (1996). Shared representations and asymmetric social influence processes in small groups. In E. Witte & J. Davis (Eds.), Understanding group behavior (Vol. 1, pp. 81-104). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
53.
van den Bos, K. , Vermunt, R., & Wilke, H. A. M. (1997). Procedural and distributive justice: What is fair depends more on what comes first than on what comes next. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 95-104.
54.
Wiener, R. L. , Habert, K., Shkodriani, G., & Staebler, C. (1991). The social psychology of jury nullification: Predicting when jurors disobey the law. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 21, 1379-1401.
