The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, September, 1913: Vol. LXXXVI, No. 5Various
General
The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, September, 1913: Vol. LXXXVI, No. 5
Various
Periodicals
In the experiment it seemed that one man judged by one criterion
and another by another, such as distribution, size of spots, vacant
spaces, or counting along one edge. Discussion often brought a
man’s attention to other criterions than those he used in his first
judgment, and these often outweighed the original. Similarly,
different jurymen would base their opinion on different aspects
of the case, and discussion would tend to draw their attention to
other aspects. The experiment also illustrated the relative weight
given to the opinion of different fellow-jurymen. I found that the
statements of a few of the older men who have had more extensive
psychological experience weighed more with me than those of the
others. Suggestion did not seem to be much of a factor. A man is
rather on his mettle, and ready to defend his original impression
until he finds that it is hopeless.
Again, another wrote:
To me the experiment seemed fairly comparable to the real
situation. As in an actual trial, the full truth was not available,
but, certain evidence was presented to all for interpretation. As
to the nature of the discussion itself, I think there was the same
mingling of suggestion and real argument that is to be found in a
jury discussion.
Another said:
The discussion influenced me by suggesting other methods of
analysis. For instance, comparison of the amount of open space
in two cards, comparison of the number of dots along the
edges, estimation in diagonal lines, were methods mentioned
in the discussion which I used in forming my own judgments.
It does not seem to me that in my own case direct suggestion
had any appreciable effect. I was aware of a tendency toward
contrasuggestibility. There was a half-submerged feeling that
it would be good sport to stick it out for the losing side. The
lack of any unusual amount of suggestion and the presence of the
influences of analysis and detailed comparison seem to me to show
that the tests were in fact fairly comparable to situations in a
jury-room.
To be sure, there were a few who were strongly impressed by the evident
differences between the rich material of an actual trial and the meager
content of our tests, there the actions of living men, here the space
relations of little spots. But they evidently did not sufficiently
realize that the forming of such number judgments was not at all a
question of mere perception; that, on the contrary, many considerations
were involved. Most men felt the similarity from the start.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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