By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Several years ago, I sat in a courtroom in Pennsylvania, assisting the defense in a capital murder jury selection. The process was involved, and potential jurors were interviewed one at a time after completing a comprehensive questionnaire. Naturally, we had scored all the questionnaires, so we had a very good […]
Avoid Juror Self-Sabotage Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: What a potential juror thinks is, of course, critical to the decision to keep or to strike. But that notion of “what she thinks” means, not just her opinions, but also the broader attitudes and dispositions that lie beneath the surface. That’s why the gold standard in voir dire is to
Consider the Complacent: Belief in a Favorable Future (BFF) Isn’t Always Your Friend Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Do you think you miss valuable information in voir dire? What about your friends and colleagues who are trial lawyers: Do you think they miss valuable information in voir dire? The first question is self-directed: It is asking about you. But the second question is what they call a “social-circle” question, asking about
Ask Social-Circle Questions Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: For those defending the reality of human-induced climate change, it is a familiar datapoint: A consensus of 97 percent of climate scientists supports the conclusion that our species is contributing to global warming and other effects on the climate. Climate change skeptics, of course, have their own consensus: a “Petition
Account for Social Facts Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: On October 1st, a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concert attendees, injuring nearly 500 and killing 58. In response, the President offered condemnation and condolences, but said the event should not be politicized and offered no policy changes. Thirty days later, a man drove a rented truck through
Expect Empathy to be Driven by Similarity Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: There’s a quote most often associated with Martin Luther King: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” When applied to historical progress, these words generally connote the comforting message that “Things get better.” Our recent history, however, seems dedicated to showing that if there’s an
Look for an Increased Perception that Racism Is a Major Problem Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: America is not yet post-racial, and the Nazis marching this week in Charlottesville, Virginia should be a reminder of that. Continuing tensions on race are played out in courtrooms as well. The as-yet unresolved issues of racial bias in jury selection provide one example. Race-based removals impact the criminal sphere more than
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: For a practical persuader, one of the most disturbing features of some biases is their self-sealing nature. When an audience suffers from confirmation bias, for example, you would hope that they could be taught out of it. That is, if they’re primed to think that all big corporations are evil,
Fight Confirmation Bias: Consider the Opposite Read More »
by Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Among the readers of this blog, there are a few people who write to me and let me know what they think about various posts. Sometimes it is to applaud a post, or to share an example where they’ve faced something similar. And sometimes, it is to take issue with
I Could Be Wrong: Cultivate Intellectual Humility Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Jurors and judges sit in court and evaluate credibility. They continuously assess who is telling the truth and who isn’t. But what is the bias in those determinations? Lie detection itself is a notoriously uncertain ability, with confidence often high, but with actual ability tending to hover more around the
Expect Bias Statements to be Unreliable and Often Overcorrected Read More »