Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
University of Northern Iowa--Students--Psychology; University of Northern Iowa; Choice (Psychology); Decision making--Psychological aspects; Students--Psychology; Academic theses;
Abstract
The current study was designed to assess the ability of participants to ignore biasing information when making a decision that resulted in a negative outcome for a target individual. Participants reviewed materials about a disciplinary matter regarding a student. Three manipulations of information occurred such that those in the control condition received no biasing information and no instruction to disregard, participants in another condition "accidentally" saw negative biasing information that they were given instructions to disregard, and participants in the final condition saw the same information as those in the second condition but were given no instruction to disregard the negative biasing information. Efforts were taken to ensure that the experimental variables mirrored those of the juror decision-making task so as to appropriately apply findings to that context. It was hypothesized that individuals exposed to biasing information would be unable to ignore that information when making their decision, even though they were instructed to, and had agreed to do so. Results indicated that individuals who saw biasing information did vote to suspend a university student for one semester, however, a boomerang effect was found for those participants who saw the negative information and were asked by an authority figure to disregard it. Individuals in this group were so intent on forgetting the biasing information that they unintentionally put more emphasis on the information they were allowed to use which, in turn, lead them to be more lenient on the defendant than those individuals who only reviewed the case materials and were not asked to disregard anything. These results suggest that when biasing information is introduced during a jury trial, jurors may try so hard to disregard that information that they lose sight of the significance of the facts of the case. This, in theory, could lead juries to find a guilty defendant "not guilty" and ultimately release criminals back out into the community.
Year of Submission
2003
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Psychology
First Advisor
M Kimberly MacLin
Second Advisor
Jane Wong
Third Advisor
Helen Harton
Date Original
2003
Object Description
1 PDF file (91 leaves)
Copyright
©2003 Brandi Jo Juntunen
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Juntunen, Brandi Jo, "Disregarding Relevant Information When Making a Decision: Is It Possible?" (2003). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 3102.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/3102
Comments
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