Lesson 6.1.5

6.1.5 Factors affecting jury decision-making Quiz: Pearson Edexcel Psychology, Unit 6

20 questions

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Lesson 6.1.5, Factors affecting jury decision-making: 20 multiple choice questions for the Pearson Edexcel Psychology (9PS0), Unit 6: Criminological psychology, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. How many jurors sit on a criminal jury in England and Wales?

    • 6
    • 12
    • 15
    • 10

  2. Which characteristic of the defendant is named in the specification as affecting jury decision-making?

    • The defendant's height in centimetres only, which is recorded on the charge sheet at the time of arrest
    • The defendant's favourite sport, which is noted by the police when they interview the suspect
    • The defendant's postcode in the national register, which is checked by the court before the trial
    • Characteristics of the defendant such as attractiveness or race

  3. What is pre-trial publicity?

    • Media coverage of a case before the trial begins, which may shape jurors' views
    • Adverts for legal services placed in the local paper by firms competing for clients in the area
    • Publicity that the court creates after the verdict to explain the decision to the public
    • Advertising by the prosecution to attract witnesses who might have seen the offence happen

  4. Which effect of negative pre-trial publicity is most commonly reported?

    • It tends to increase judgements of guilt among potential jurors
    • It makes jurors more likely to forget the case, so the evidence has less influence on the verdict
    • It always leads to acquittal, since jurors who read about the case tend to doubt the evidence
    • It has no effect on any judgement, because jurors ignore what they read before the trial begins

  5. What is meant by a mock jury in research?

    • A real jury that has been dismissed from a trial and then asked to give its views on the case
    • A computer program that predicts verdicts from the facts of a case and the defendant's record
    • A group of lawyers who rehearse arguments together before a case is heard in open court
    • A group of participants who consider a simulated case and reach a decision

  6. A study uses mock juries reading written case summaries. What is the main limitation for generalising to real trials?

    • Written summaries and artificial settings may lack the realism of a real trial
    • Mock juries are always more accurate than real juries, because the participants have no pressure
    • Mock juries always contain too many members, which makes their decisions harder to compare
    • Written material cannot be read by participants, so the study has to use video instead

  7. A researcher finds that attractive defendants are judged more leniently in one kind of offence. Which statement is most accurate?

    • Attractiveness has no effect on any jury decision, since jurors are trained to ignore appearance
    • Attractive defendants are always convicted more often, whatever the evidence in the particular case
    • Attractiveness only matters to the judge, never to jurors, who decide only on the facts of the case
    • Defendant attractiveness can influence judgements, but the effect may depend on the type of offence

  8. Why is the race of the defendant relevant to research on jury decision-making?

    • Race only matters to the court clerk, who records the defendant's details on the file at the start
    • Race is never relevant because juries are always impartial, whatever the background of the people involved
    • Race only affects the sentence after the verdict is reached, so it has no bearing on guilt
    • Racial bias may influence judgements of guilt, which affects fairness in trials

  9. In a mock jury study, participants who read negative pre-trial publicity rate the defendant as more guilty than controls. Which conclusion is most cautious and appropriate?

    • The publicity may have influenced judgement, but mock-jury findings need confirming in more realistic conditions
    • Pre-trial publicity always produces guilty verdicts in real trials, so juries are never able to be fair
    • Mock juries are always representative of real juries, so the findings can be applied to every court directly
    • Publicity has no effect on any form of judgement, because jurors are unaffected by what they read

  10. Why might a juror's pre-existing beliefs affect a verdict?

    • Jurors never form opinions before hearing the evidence, because they are sworn in only at the start
    • Jurors are required to ignore the trial entirely, so their prior views are never part of the process
    • Jurors may use prior beliefs to interpret the evidence rather than judging it neutrally
    • Prior beliefs only affect the judge's decision, since jurors are told only to listen to the court

  11. A jury deliberates and reaches a verdict by majority rather than unanimity. What is a potential disadvantage of this approach?

    • Majority verdicts make every juror agree in advance
    • Majority verdicts always favour the defendant
    • A minority view may be overridden even when it is well reasoned
    • Majority verdicts remove the need for any discussion

  12. A study finds that jurors who are told a defendant has a criminal record convict more often. Which factor does this illustrate?

    • Inadmissible information that can bias judgement of guilt
    • Accurate evidence that should always be accepted
    • A matching of verdicts to the defendant's age
    • Random chance with no effect on any judgement

  13. Which evaluation of research into jury decision-making is most balanced?

    • It proves that juries are always fair and accurate, so no safeguards or reforms are needed at all
    • It has no value because juries never discuss the case, so there is nothing to study in them
    • It shows real effects of bias, but results from simulations may not reflect real trial deliberation
    • It shows that juries are always biased in every case, so the system should be replaced at once

  14. Why might the same evidence lead to different verdicts in two trials with different defendants?

    • Characteristics of the defendant and the context can change how jurors interpret the same evidence
    • The verdicts are chosen by lottery in every case, so the evidence has no real bearing on them
    • The evidence is always interpreted in exactly the same way by every juror, whatever the case
    • The jurors always decide before hearing the evidence, so the trial makes no difference to outcomes

  15. A study of jury decision-making uses a within-subjects design. What is the main advantage?

    • Each participant serves as their own control, which reduces individual differences
    • It removes the need for any informed consent, since participants are already familiar with the task
    • It means the study will never need to be repeated, because the results are final and complete
    • It guarantees that all participants are from the same family, which keeps the sample consistent

  16. Which feature of a trial could reduce the influence of pre-trial publicity on jurors?

    • A judge's instruction to base the verdict only on the evidence presented in court
    • Asking jurors to discuss the case with the public outside court, so that community views can be heard
    • Allowing jurors to read more newspaper coverage, so they are better informed about the case before the trial
    • Using a juror who has already decided the case, so that the verdict is reached more quickly in court

  17. A mock jury study finds no difference in verdicts between attractive and unattractive defendants. What is the most appropriate interpretation?

    • Attractiveness only affects the sentence length, not the verdict, so the result is entirely expected
    • The study must have contained an error in the design, since attractiveness always affects verdicts
    • Attractiveness has been proven to have no effect in all trials, so the question is now closed for good
    • No effect was found in this study, but the result does not prove that attractiveness never matters

  18. Which factor could limit the generalisability of a study using student mock jurors?

    • Students cannot read case material, so the sample is unable to take part in the mock jury task
    • Students are always more representative than the public, so the sample is ideal for jury research
    • Students may differ from a representative sample of the public who serve on real juries
    • Students never have opinions about crime, so their verdicts show no real pattern worth studying

  19. A researcher finds that jurors judge a defendant more harshly after reading about a similar crime in the news. Which concept does this illustrate?

    • Pre-trial publicity affecting juror judgement
    • Monotropy in childhood development, in which a child forms a single main bond with one adult
    • Strange Situation classification, which sorts infants into attachment types by their reactions
    • Operant conditioning of responses, in which behaviour is shaped by rewards and punishments over time

  20. A researcher argues that jury bias research only tests laboratory simulations and so is useless. What is the strongest reply?

    • Laboratory work is never useful for any research question, because it cannot inform real legal practice
    • Simulations are always identical to real trials, so the findings transfer directly to every court case
    • Simulations isolate specific effects that can inform real procedures, though replication in realistic settings is also needed
    • Juries cannot be studied in any setting at all, so the question of bias cannot be tested by research

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