By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Sometimes gut feelings are at odds with the research. For example, some attorneys and judges have a gut feeling that allowing jurors to submit questions to witnesses will take an inordinate amount of time, introduce irrelevant issues, or turn jurors from neutrals into advocates. Those fears, either tacit or overt, […]
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: When supporters praise the American jury, it is often in the sepia-toned romantic terms of history. But, to George Washington Law Professor Renee Lettow Lerner, it is more like Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” She writes, “Americans’ romance with the jury – bordering on religious devotion – is doing us no
No, Don’t Repeal the Civil Jury: A Response to Professor Renee Lettow Lerner Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: You’ll see it often in mock trials: The last measure of mock jurors’ individual leanings on the case will show a healthy disagreement, but once they start deliberating, all or nearly all of them seem to be of one mind. Somehow, conformity has established itself in the earliest moments of
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: For those of us in the social sciences, data is our currency. And of course, we would prefer that our window into attitudes and trends gives us an unbiased view. The reality, though, is that the “how you collected it” matters as much as the “what you collected.” A simple
Note the Difference in Self-Service Survey Techniques Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: “What’s the “credibility fish,” you ask? It is the shape in the image above: The graph that is made when measuring the credibility of each of two parties over the course of a simple mock trial. We ask the mock jurors to rate each party’s credibility on a scale that
Aim for the “Credibility Fish” in Your Mock Trial Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: When I was still a graduate student, I remember the Reverend Jesse Jackson delivering the 1988 Democratic Convention address in Atlanta: his famous “Common Ground” speech. In that wide-ranging address, he tied together diverse issues — expansion of the party, the arms race, voting rights, health care, student loans —
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The TED phenomenon is very interesting to me. The niche involves hosting 20-minute talks by innovative individuals, some famous some not, in order to share “ideas worth spreading” on technology, entertainment, and design — very broadly defined, those three areas form the acronym for TED. The idea that in today’s day and
Improve Delivery By Perfecting Your ‘TED Moves’ Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: With Americans increasingly getting their news online via Facebook and similar platforms, our already divided society is at risk of becoming even more polarized. Some of the blame for that has centered on the computerized algorithms that influence what appears in our online newsfeeds, and have a parallel in the
Improve Adaptation by Expanding Your Social Network Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The Minnesota State Senate, I learned from a recent NPR story, prohibits eye contact. Incredibly, the legislative body has a rule stating that all comments must be addressed to the Senate President, and that rule is interpreted to mean that senators cannot look their fellow senators in the eye while
Make the Right Kind of Eye Contact Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments on the question of marriage equality, and specifically whether state bans on same sex marriage are unconstitutional, and whether marriages that are legal in one state need to be recognized in another. As is typical, the focus is on Justice Kennedy as the
Know Your Questioner’s Purpose Read More »