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Well…ah…: Hesitations and Hedges as an Influence on Jurors' Decisions 1
Author(s) -
Mendoza Norma A.,
Hosch Harmon M.,
Ponder Bruce J.,
Carrillo Victor
Publication year - 2000
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.1559-1816.2000.tb02452.x
Subject(s) - witness , psychology , credibility , interpretation (philosophy) , dominance (genetics) , context (archaeology) , social psychology , style (visual arts) , law , linguistics , political science , philosophy , paleontology , history , biochemistry , chemistry , archaeology , biology , gene
Hispanic jurors' verdicts and whether these decisions were related to jurors' judgments of the credibility of the witness were the focus of this experiment. A prosecution witness testified in English or in Spanish with interpretation in English. Witnesses' speaking style systematically included hedges and hesitations or did not. Guilty verdicts were independent of language of testimony. Within Spanish‐interpreted conditions, jurors convicted the defendant 47% of the time in the absence of hedges and hesitations. When he hedged and hesitated, they convicted 34% of the time. This effect was complicated by a reliable Witness Hesitation × Juror Language Dominance interaction. These results are interpreted in the context of the courtroom impact of non‐English‐speaking witnesses and the impact of interpretation.
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