AUTHOR=Yamamoto Susan , Maeder Evelyn M. 

TITLE=Juror decision-making and biracial targets

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cognition

VOLUME=3

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cognition/articles/10.3389/fcogn.2024.1354057

DOI=10.3389/fcogn.2024.1354057

ISSN=2813-4532

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Objectives</title><p>This study examined potential bias against Biracial defendants using a juror decision-making paradigm. We also tested whether encouraging mock jurors not to endorse racial essentialism (belief that racial groups have inborn, immutable traits that influence behavior) would mitigate bias.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>Canadian jury-eligible participants (<italic>N</italic> = 326) read a fabricated first-degree murder of a police officer case (involving a Black, White, or photo-morphed Black-White Biracial defendant), then made verdict decisions, completed a heuristics questionnaire, and answered racial categorization questions.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>While there were no significant effects on verdicts, those higher in heuristic thinking tended to estimate a lower percentage of European ancestry for a Biracial defendant when the defense lawyer drew attention to race.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusions</title><p>Findings suggest that individual differences such as the tendency to rely on heuristic thinking may alter how racially ambiguous targets are perceived.</p></sec>