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Effects of Photographic Evidence on Mock Juror Judgement 1
Author(s) -
Whalen Denise H.,
Blanchard Fletcher A.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1982.tb00846.x
Subject(s) - plaintiff , psychology , blame , judgement , interpretation (philosophy) , social psychology , punitive damages , white (mutation) , damages , law , political science , philosophy , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
Effects of three levels of photographic evidence (color, black & white, no photograph) on 144 female subjects' monetary awards to an injured plaintiff were investigated in a 3 × 2 × 3 factorial design. Also manipulated were two levels of the severity of the plaintiff's injury and three levels of defendant blame. As predicted, a significant three‐way interaction was observed such that the magnitude of the difference in monetary damages awarded the more and less severely injured plaintiff was greatest in the presence of the color photograph depicting injuries and when defendant blame was high. An emotional arousal interpretation for the effects of photographic evidence is tentatively offered.