Abstract
Theoretical speculation and meta-analysis suggest that the strength of treatment effects (e.g., defendant attractiveness) may become weaker as the experimental simulation becomes more realistic and complex. In order to test this hypothesis, various levels of biasing pretrial publicity were combined with both a short and a long trial. Results provided no support for the contention that treatment effects act differently as a function of the length of the stimulus trial in which they are embedded. Rather, it is suggested that treatments used in simplified jury simulations may often show similar effects when examined in more realistic, complex settingsif the treatments are comparable.
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This research was supported by NSF Research grant No. SES 8419944 to the second author, John Carroll, and James Alfini. Portions were presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association Convention, Chicago, May 7–9, 1987.
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Kramer, G.P., Kerr, N.L. Laboratory simulation and bias in the study of juror behavior. Law Hum Behav 13, 89–99 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01056165
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01056165