By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm:
When it comes to sizing up our potential jurors, we are used to looking at their politics. Both conventional wisdom and practical experience suggest that conservatives are more likely to prioritize individual responsibility while liberals focus on social responsibility. That means that in many cases — not all, but many — political leaning plays a role in how a juror might assign responsibility in a civil case. Increasingly, though, there is a need to look beyond the liberal/conservative binary to see meaningful divisions within the two sides of the spectrum. Particularly among Republicans, there is an extreme portion that is not just more conservative along the same continuum, but is also more likely to hold beliefs that set them at odds with other conservatives. Our recent experience with COVID-19 as well as the 2020 Presidential election has pushed that slice into the territory of conspiracy thinking. That belief that powerful interests are secretly controlling important events and that we cannot trust common sources of information is also a mindset that builds on itself. In other words, research shows that holding one conspiracy belief can be a gateway to holding more conspiracy beliefs.
New data on the conservative-conspiracist phenomenon comes in a current article in DRI’s For the Defense (Polavin, 2023). In that article, trial consultant Dr. Nick Polavin reports on his own research showing not just the extent of conspiracy thinking among the pool of potential jurors, but also the ways the mindset interacts with political leaning to push jurors in directions that can differ pretty dramatically from the conventional wisdom of seeing conservatives as good for defendants and liberals as good for plaintiffs. Appreciating the nuance is practically important when you are engaged in advance research on your panel and conducting voir dire. In this post, I’ll take a look at Dr. Polavin’s research and its implications for jury selection.
The Research: Conspiracist Conservatives Aren’t Like Other Conservatives
Using 258 jury-eligible participants in the U.S., Polavin’s research exposed these mock jurors to a fictional lawsuit involving a migraine sufferer who believes she contracted cancer after exposure to a possibly carcinogenic medication. While the plaintiff’s expert highlights the carcinogenic potential of the medication based on massive-dose animal studies, the FDA as well as the defense team’s science argues that there is no documented link to cancer in humans.
In evaluating the jurors’ verdicts, a belief in conspiracies turns out to be the strongest predictor. It also interacts with political orientation, with Polavin concluding, “far right-wing Republicans were more likely to find for the plaintiff while moderate Republicans were more likely to find for the defense.” When looking at politics, strong liberals still tended to be the worst jurors for the defense, and moderate conservatives were the best. But conservatives who supported Donald Trump but not Liz Cheney (a question shown to identify conspiracy thinkers) were very close behind the strong liberals as far as being bad for this defendant.
The Implications: Spot the Conspiracists
The implication is that conspiracy thinkers are less likely to trust regulators and the government generally, and are less likely to trust science and the consensus within a given field. But, as Dr. Polavin notes, you can’t just ask potential jurors whether they’re conspiracy thinkers or not. There were a few factors that the research shows to be effective at predicting the conspiracy-minded:
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- A lack of trust in government, and regulators
- Anti-corporate bias
- Prioritizing intuition over evidence
- Low education
In addition, Polavin recommends also looking at high religiosity, COVID vaccination status, and traits associated with authoritarianism. While it can be a challenge to get into some of these areas in oral voir dire, it is, thankfully, still quite effective to rely on social media research in many cases to identify those who are conspiracy thinkers. While I am not aware of specific research on the question, we have seen anecdotal support for the idea that conspiracy thinkers seem to be more likely to have a vocal and public social media presence, and often see that as their preferred outlet for espousing their “truth.”
As you work to develop the most complete profile you can on your potential fact-finders, it is becoming more important to distinguish between their partisan preferences (Republican or Democrat) and their more fundamental mindset preferences, including whether they incline toward conspiracy theories or not.
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Other Posts on Conspiracy Thinkers:
- See the Threads of Conspiracy Thinking
- Convert Your Conspiracy Theorists: Research Shows it Can Be Done
- Don’t Take Analytical Thinking for Granted
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Image credit: Shuttterstock, used under license