Virtual Courts and Backgrounds: How Background Cues Shape Impressions and Guilt Assessments of Trial Participants

Abstract

Technological advances have allowed a virtual presence into the courtroom, allowing trial participants to attend court proceedings from virtual and remote locations. This virtual presence is not new to the courtroom but was largely accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. One consequence that has not yet been explored empirically, but is a prominent concern amongst the legal community, are background cues: cues behind a virtually present speaker that can provide information about the location and space in which they are joining from. Although these cues can sometimes provide accurate information about that person and their personality, they may also extend to more nondiagnostic and potentially biasing evaluations, which may be most consequential in courtrooms. This thesis explores the impact of these background cues on impressions and guilt assessments made in courtroom environments.

The central hypothesis was whether background cues are drawn upon in virtual court environments that work to influence impressions and guilt assessments. This thesis also includes discussions regarding what cognitive mechanisms may lead to a "background bias"; including the potential for cues to act as primes that activate semantic associations, stereotypes, and metaphors that impact judgments regarding the person (e.g., Allbritton et al., 1995; Bargh et al., 1996).

The thesis presents three lines of research that consider the extent to which background cues are used in mock juror impression formation and guilt assessments. Overall, the findings suggest background cues can bias judgments regarding impressions and, under some conditions, trial outcomes. This effect is explored across multiple experiments, allowing exploration of conditions under which background biases are more (or less) likely to emerge. Show more