By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm:
“The whole problem with the world,” according to an adage attributed to Bertrand Russell, “is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts.” Reading the comments sections in just about any online magazine, it is easy to see those confident extremists. There is something about positioning yourself to the outside of public opinion, either left or right, that conveys a certainty: a belief that you’ve seen a truth that’s eluded the majority. That certainty can be a strength, and it may be an explanation for why, in the political arena, those who get the most buzz are often at the edges, and there may never be a galvanizing and charismatic centrist.
When watching mock jury deliberations, that connection between extreme views and confident advocacy is often on full display. Those with leanings at the poles (the “one’s” or the “seven’s” as we measure their leanings on a Likert scale), are often brimming with confidence, ending up as the most vocal and influential jurors. And research confirms this link between extremism and confidence. But, interestingly, a new study covered in Psychological Science (Brandt, Evans, & Crawford, 2014) suggests that there may be psychological benefits to this extremism that extend beyond just confidence. Those who are on the extremes, the researchers show, are also more resistent to psychological biases – anchoring in this case – apparently because they are more confident in their own judgment. This post takes a look at what this research means to our understanding of leadership within a jury.
The Research: Extremely Confident
Mark Brandt and Anthony Evans of Tilburg University in the Netherlands along with Jarret Crawford of the College of New Jersey conducted three large-scale studies comparing political moderates with those who hold more extreme opinions and found that an attitude of “belief superiority” among the extremists predicts a greater resistence to bias. In this study, a total of close to seven thousand participants were asked to make an estimate after being given a number (e.g., “The distance between New York and San Francisco is greater than 2,000 miles. How far is it?). A long line of research has shown that this kind of task creates a strong “anchoring” bias, as particants use the number – even one that is farily arbitrarily selected – as a starting point before adjusting up or down. The choice of anchor number can make a huge difference, with higher anchors driving up the estimates, and lower anchors pulling them down.
The difference the researchers observed in the extremists is that they drew a sharper distinction between the anchors they themselves created and the anchors that came from an external source, and the external anchors were significantly less likely to influence their estimates. This greater resistence to anchoring bias appears to the researchers to be a product of confidence. Lead author Mark Brandt explains in a recent Science Daily: “These findings suggest that political extremists may make more confident judgments and are not necessarily unthinkingly relying on heuristics.”
The Implications for Trial and Mock Trial: Extreme Attention
Lawyers and trial consultants are always interested in the dynamics of opinion, bias, and leadership. Based on this study’s demonstration of a link between extremism, confidence, and resistence to bias, I want to pull back and share three general thoughts.
Expect Extreme Independence
I’ve found that jurors generally want to feel like they are making an independent judgment, instead of being led to their conclusions by one side or the other. That autonomous preference is predictably higher at the extremes. Confident jurors are not prone to just sit and listen to the attorney before saying, “Hey, he is right!” Instead, those stong jurors want to feel they’ve made their own assessment of the evidence, conducted their own investigations of the facts, and decided for themselves who to trust. Adapt to that in your own trial message by teaching instead of preaching, and by facilitating the jurors’ own routes to your preferred verdict.
Note the Interplay in Extremism and Leadership
When watching mock jurors deliberate, our attention naturally focuses on the leaders, and that is appropriate. In picking out those with the strongest views, it makes sense to measure, not just their reactions, but also their strength of opinion: Ask not only what their preferred verdict is, but also how sure they are of that opinion. Once deliberation starts, those who are most extreme and most certain of their views can end up being isolated for their opinions, or they can end up playing an outsized role in the jury’s ultimate verdict. So one important focus in the observation room should be on which themes and arguments serve to empower or to disarm those on each extreme.
Craft Your Strike Strategy Based on Extremes
Once you get to trial, your focus will not only be on arguments, but also on jury selection. In that setting, the relationships between extremism, confidence, and leadership are vital. And one rule of thumb is, don’t waste early strikes on non-leaders. Instead, focus those precious peremptories on those who are likely to be most extreme in their opposition to your case. For the corporate defendant, most venire members will trust a company less than an individual, and as they say, “You can’t strike ’em all.” Instead, you want to focus on those who are so strong in their distrust that they would be unlikely to listen to your executives and unlikely to believe that there could be exceptions to the rule.
Going back to the Bertrand Russell quotation from the introduction, it is natural for your focus – both in pretrial research and in jury strikes – to be on the first half: The “fools and fanatics” who are “so certain of themselves,” and your attention should definitely be there. But the role of persuasively sensitive counsel and trial consultant is also to appreciate the complexity of the situation, to focus on that second half of the quotation, and to be “the wiser people, so full of doubts.”
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Other Posts on Opinion Leaders:
- Spot Your Jury Leader
- Pay Close Attention to the Big Mouths in Voir Dire
- The Dangers of Persuasion: Mind Your Jury Leaders
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M. J. Brandt, A. M. Evans, J. T. Crawford. The Unthinking or Confident Extremist? Political Extremists Are More Likely Than Moderates to Reject Experimenter-Generated Anchors. Psychological Science, 2014; DOI: 10.1177/0956797614559730
Image Credit: 123rf.com, used under license.