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Juror Decision Making Essay

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Jurors’ decisions are affected by emotions and other unspoken thoughts/feelings. Previous research has shown that people make decisions on “quick gut feelings.” The goal of this study is to see if a disgusting stimulus will have an influence on juror decision-making. The research was concerned with the decision-making question of whether or not jurors’ disgust and gut-feeling judgment towards the defendant are key elements in legal settings. This decision will be due to a “quick gut feeling” of disgust either attributed or not attributed to the criminal (Schnall, Haidt, Clore & Jordan, 2008). Haidt (1997) suggested that facial expressions used to reject physically disgusting things are also used to reject certain kinds of socially …show more content…

More than any other emotion, disgust feels like a “gut” feeling and because of its link to nausea, disgust may be the most effective emotion at triggering the gastro-enteric nervous system. Schnall, Haidt, Clore, & Jordan (2008) performed four studies involving four different ways of inducing disgust and found a causal relationship between feelings of disgust and moral condemnation. Like previous research, this study showed that there is a relationship between disgust and moral judgment. Moral judgment and reasoning are important for the evaluations people make about a situation in certain cultures. Feelings of disgust cause individuals to make harsher decisions even if the decision has nothing to do with what originally disgusted them. Disgust is thought to have an effect on decision-making. Disgust and decision making has been researched as how disgust affects moral decisions (Schnall, Haidt, Clore, & Jordan, 2008). These studies indicate that disgust associated with the defendant can affect one’s judgment of the person’s character. Jones and Fitness (2008) showed that people who were exposed to descriptions of criminal behavior displayed feelings of disgust. These findings suggest that disgust is associated with criminal behavior whether associated with the criminal or not. Behaviors that are seen as degrading, defiling, or

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