By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm:
With protests continuing in many major American cities, the civil unrest and violence has had a polarizing effect on the public. While some call for reform and for understanding of what motivates these marches, others call for a return to law and order, with force if necessary. If the past is a guide, then times of turmoil like these will lead to a rise in authoritarianism in parts of the population. There is some evidence that over the past few years, the political attitudes characterized by reduced support for diversity and civil rights, along with increased support for strong and powerful leadership, a constellation that could be called neo-authoritarianism, has been on the rise. As I wrote last week, coronavirus has also played a role, as fear increases the perceived need for structure and the degree of support for right-wing causes. Adding widespread social unrest to that mix should accelerate the trend toward authoritarianism becoming more of a core value.
One recent analysis (Knuckey & Hassan, 2020) indicates that this psychological trait of authoritarianism in 2016 had the largest effect on white voter choice compared to all prior elections that have been analyzed. There is a distinction to be made, and psychological authoritarianism is a system of values and preferences, and is not as simple as support for an authoritarian political system. Many, however, feel that the psychological dimension paves the way for the political, and a society with more psychological authoritarians will have less resistance to a drift toward political authoritarianism. They’re also likely to see court cases differently. The authoritarian juror has been well-studied, and as the jury pool becomes more polarized on questions of authority, order, and power, it is likely to have some implications for jury selection.
What Do We Know About the Authoritarian Juror?
One source that does a good job of comprehensively summarizing the research to date on authoritarianism in a juror context is the publication of the National Jury Project, Jury Work. Based on the research so far, jurors who measure higher on psychological authoritarianism are more likely to:
- Give strong presumption to conventional beliefs
- Prepare a rigid, rules-oriented belief system
- Fear new, unknown, or untried ideas
- Focus more on punishment as a goal (in both civil and criminal cases)
- Show hostility toward those in a perceived minority or deviant group
- Give less support to civil liberties
- Base decisions on the perceived similarity between themselves and a party
- Convict in criminal cases
- Apply the death penalty in capital cases
- Place blame on a single-party, rather than apportioning blame in civil cases
- Side with the party with the greater social prestige (e.g., an employer over an employee, a larger company over a smaller, etc.)
- Rigorously follow jury instructions, even without personal agreement
How Do You Spot the Authoritarian Juror?
While some might equate a more authoritarian juror with a more pro-defense juror in civil cases, it will often be more complicated than that. Within the constraints of your own case, it pays to ask who is likely to be seen as the stronger and more prestigious party, who is on the side of the “new,” rather than the “settled,” and who would be more likely to be perceived as a rule-follower, rather than rule-breaker. Depending on your case, you may need to identify those high-authoritarian jurors.
Ask in Voir Dire
Fortunately, authoritarianism is assessed through one of the longest-lived psychological metrics, the “authoritarian personality scale,” or more simply the “F-scale.” Some shorter versions exist, and most litigation consultants who help you with jury selection will be able to advise you on how some of these concepts and questions can be incorporated into a written juror questionnaire or oral voir dire.
Infer from Politics and Values
If you don’t have the ability to question on authoritarianism directly, then you can make reasonable estimates of your potential jurors’ views on rights, authority, and diversity by learning about the jurors’ personal commitments. If they, like most, have a public presence on social media, then their political tribe will often be evident. You can also ask about values, like individual versus collective responsibility, order versus liberty, or consistency versus progress.
Psychological authoritarianism has, of course, been with us forever, and extensively studied since the end of World War II. The pattern is that it exerts a heavy influence on individual worldviews, and rises and falls at different points in history. Given the complete turmoil that has characterized 2020 so far, this is likely to be a time for its rise.
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Other Posts on Authoritarianism:
- Prime Your Jurors on the Pandemic, Make Them More Conservative
- Add Neo-Authoritarians to Your Political Spectrum
- Know Your Trump Juror
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Knuckey, J., & Hassan, K. (2020). Authoritarianism and support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election. The Social Science Journal, 1-14.