By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm:
It is a jury’s first task: Pick a foreperson, someone who will lead the discussion, help the group walk through the evidence, and work their way to a decision. Who gets picked? The person who is experienced at being a juror? The person who holds a leadership role in their work life? The person who is the most knowledgeable or intelligent? The answer from the research is that it is none of those. What best predicts the emergence of leaders in a small group is talkativeness. In other words, the person who speaks the most, regardless of the quality of that contribution, is most likely to be the group leader. As discussed in a recent Big Think article, the new study emerged in response to past attempts to look at what leads to leadership which were confounded by the simple variable of talking time. “While we tend to think of leaders as people who share important ideas,” the piece notes, “leadership may boil down to whoever ‘babbles’ the most.”
The study (MacLaren et al., 2023) looked at what is colloquially called “The babble hypothesis,” which is that it is quantity of speaking time rather than anything else that determines the emergence of leadership in a small group. The team, led by Neil MacLaren of Binghamton university — who, we can assume, got that position because he talked the most — used 256 college students in conditions somewhat similar to a jury. They divided the participants into groups of 4 to 10, gave them a one-hour task, and looked for the emergence of leadership. After controlling for other variables (previous experience with the task, personality, intelligence) they found those who talked more were more likely to be nominated as leaders. They also found a tendency to prioritize males, with the lead author noting, “in our data, men receive on average an extra vote just for being a man.” In this post, I’ll share a few thoughts on the implications of leadership in assessing your jury.
Look for Leaders, Not Just for Risky Jurors
Sometimes, I believe, lawyers are scared of leaders, preferring to see themselves as the leader of the jury, and hoping for a pool of followers who will go along with that they say. But once in the deliberation room, someone will lead that group. And the way I see it, leadership is a trait with a multiplier effect: it makes a good juror very good and makes a bad juror very bad. A candidate with some higher risk characteristics becomes less of a threat in the absence of leadership qualities, and more of a threat in their presence. Of course, you can’t pick who the jury’s foreperson will be, but you can account for likely leaders, and give them extra attention as part of the jury selection process.
Watch Their Talk (Both Inside and Outside of Voir Dire)
Pay attention to how much jurors talk because that is the most reliable indication of who your leader or leaders will be. Looking at those who are hand-raisers, and who are not just looking to be excused, is a good place to start. Also note who gives longer and more detailed answers — not just “yes,” or “no” but explanations and reasons. Finally, you want to keep an eye on the venire members when they’re in the gallery or when they are on breaks. Those who are initiating conversations and talking with several in their cohort are likely to have outsized influence in the event that they make it onto the panel.
Start in the Mock Trial
One benefit of a mock trial is that you get to see the leadership in action. In watching the deliberations, you not only get to see whether you were right or not on who becomes a leader, but you can also look at how the leaders operate. In addition to the likelihood that they’ll be the biggest talkers, what do they say, and specifically what arguments and other levers do they use to bring others over to their side? The real advantage of the mock trial is that you get to see reactions, not as static attitudes but in the more realistic context of group dynamics.
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Other Posts on Jury Leaders:
- Pay Close Attention to the Big Mouths in Voir Dire
- Expect Jury Leaders to Act as Individuals, not Representatives
- School Your Jury (Like Fish)
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MacLaren, N. G., Yammarino, F. J., Dionne, S. D., Sayama, H., Mumford, M. D., Connelly, S., … & Ruark, G. A. (2020). Testing the babble hypothesis: Speaking time predicts leader emergence in small groups. The Leadership Quarterly, 31(5), 101409.