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Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 28, No. 4, August 2004 (!
Firing Back at the Backfire Effect: The Influence
of Mortality Salience and Nullification Beliefs
on Reactions to Inadmissible Evidence
Alison Cook,1,3 Jamie Arndt,1 and Joel D. Lieberman2
Two studies were conducted to explore psychological factors that contribute to the
influence of inadmissible evidence (i.e., the backfire effect) on jurors’ verdicts. On
the basis of hypotheses derived from terror management theory, we predicted that
reminders of mortality, in contrast to an aversive control topic, should lead participants
to be less punitive when confronted with inadmissible (as opposed to admissible)
evidence, when participants were either situationally induced or dispositionally prone
to follow their personal sense of justice. In Study 1, control participants who scored
high on a measure of nullification beliefs, and thus were prone to relying on their own
sense of justice rather than the law, exhibited the backfire effect. However, reminding
participants of their mortality reduced the damaging influence of inadmissible evidence.
Study 2 extended these findings by showing parallel effects with a manipulation of
nullification proneness via judicial instructions. The implications of these factors on
the judicial process are discussed.
KEY WORDS: Terror management; backfire effect; juror motivation.
INTRODUCTION
“The jury is to disregard the witness’s last statement.” Such an admonition is
likely familiar to most people whether they are legal professionals, academics acquainted with jury decision-making research, or lay people who only occasionally
watch courtroom dramas on television. If evidence is obtained illegally, is misleading, or is prejudicial, it may be deemed inadmissible by a judge. The US legal system operates under the assumptions that jurors are both willing and able to ignore information that has been deemed inadmissible. Yet, research suggests this
1 Department
of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri—Columbia, Columbia, Missouri.
of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada.
3 To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychological Sciences, University of
Missouri—Columbia, 210 McAlester Hall, Columbia, Missouri 65212; e-mail: [email protected].
2 Department
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may not be a reasonable assumption: admonitions to disregard inadmissible evidence are not always effective, especially when that evidence is incriminating (e.g.,
Fein, McCloskey, & Tomlinson, 1997; Wolf & Montgomery, 1977; for a review see
Lieberman & Arndt, 2000). Indeed, limiting instructions to ignore information may
even backfire, causing jurors to weigh inadmissible evidence more heavily than if the
evidence was admissible (e.g., Broeder, 1959; Cox & Tanford, 1989; Edwards & Bryan,
1997).
Given the important implications of the backfire effect for the legal system, it
is critical to understand those psychological factors, both dispositional and situational, which facilitate and can potentially mitigate the emergence of this effect. One
possibility investigated here, based on hypotheses derived from terror management
theory (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991), is that people’s awareness of
their mortality might increase their desire to uphold beliefs about procedural fairness, thereby attenuating the backfire effect. This research also examines whether
such a possibility would particularly be likely among individuals who are inclined to
rely on their own sense of justice.
Inadmissible Evidence and Backfire Effect Research
Previous research has repeatedly shown that judicial admonitions to ignore evidence are ineffective (Lieberman & Arndt, 2000). In some cases, deeming information inadmissible may not only fail to prevent jurors from ignoring it, but also may
promote a “backfire effect” in which the information actually becomes more influential on jurors’ verdicts (Cox & Tanford, 1989). In a classic demonstration of this effect,
Broeder (1959) found that participants awarded higher damages to a plaintiff after
being instructed by a judge to disregard a statement that a defendant was covered by
insurance, than when no mention of insurance was made, or when jurors were told
that the defendant had insurance but no admonitions to disregard that information
were given.
Since the original demonstration of the backfire effect, a number of studies
have examined factors that moderate the effect and how the effect manifests itself in different types of cases (Pickel, 1995). For example, Wolf and Montgomery
(1977) assessed whether the strength of admonition would influence mock jurors’
verdicts. Participants read a trial transcript that included critical evidence that supported either the prosecution or the defense. The evidence was ruled admissible,
or inadmissible with either weak or strong judicial admonitions to disregard it.
Mock jurors’ verdicts were influenced most in the direction of the presented testimony by the admissible and inadmissible plus strong admonishment conditions, but
were less influenced when the information was deemed inadmissible using a weaker
admonishment.
Wolf and Montgomery (1977) interpreted these findings in light of reactance theory (Brehm, 1966). Briefly, reactance theory (Brehm, 1966) states that when someone
feels her or his autonomy is threatened, that individual is motivated to regain freedom by doing whatever he or she feels prevented from doing. Therefore, the greater
the threat to one’s freedom, the greater one desires to reassert her or his autonomy.
In addition, the free behavior may become more attractive to an individual. Thus,
Wolf and Montgomery (1977) suggested that when jurors are prevented by law from
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considering a piece of evidence, this admonition may increase reactance and thereby
motivate people to ignore judicial instructions and use the forbidden information in
order to reassert their freedom. These results suggest that jurors’ motivations may
provide critical insight into when and why the backfire effect occurs. The present
studies are also concerned with jurors’ motivation when confronted with inadmissible evidence; specifically, motivations provoked by peoples’ knowledge of death.
According to recent research, an awareness of one’s own mortality may have wideranging influences on human social behavior broadly, and more specifically on jurors’
motivations in the context of rendering legal decisions (Arndt, Lieberman, Cook, &
Solomon, 2003).
Terror Management Theory and Research
Terror management theory (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997;
Solomon et al., 1991) maintains that humans’ advanced cognitive abilities for thinking
abstractly and symbolically lead to awareness of their own frailty and inevitable
demise. This unique human awareness combined with a natural proclivity for selfpreservation causes the potential for anxiety and terror. This terror motivates individuals to uphold a set of culturally prescribed values and standards that constitute
a cultural worldview, and imbues their lives with order, meaning, and permanence.
Investing in a cultural worldview and, subsequently, maintaining one’s self-esteem by
upholding these standards, buffers the individual from potential existential anxiety
associated with his or her awareness of mortality. Because the worldview is an important buffer and also a fragile social construction, individuals defend their worldviews
in order to quell death-related concerns. Over 150 studies to date, conducted in over
nine different countries, indicate that reminding participants of their own mortality
(mortality salience) leads to worldview defense: people are more likely to search for
validation of their worldview and to defend their worldview against people or ideas
that threaten it (for a review see Greenberg et al., 1997). This corpus of work has also
demonstrated that these effects occur relative to a variety of other aversive topics
(e.g., failure, pain, paralysis, and social exclusion).
One direction of terror management research has demonstrated that mortality
salience engenders more punitive reactions toward violators of cultural standards
in legal settings. For example, Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, and
Lyon (1989; Study 1) showed that after municipal court judges were reminded of
their own mortality, they recommended higher bonds for an alleged prostitute compared to judges in the control condition, indicating mortality salience increased the
need to uphold cultural standards by punishing the legal transgressor. Florian and
Mikulincer (1997) replicated these findings and discovered that mortality salient individuals also showed increased negative reactions toward other legal and moral
violations. In addition, a recent study revealed that mortality salience led to greater
agreement with hate-crime legislation and statements that promoted harsher sentences for hate-crime perpetrators when there was no mention of a specific victim
(Lieberman, Arndt, Personious, & Cook, 2001; Study 1). These findings converge
with previous terror management research to show that notions of justice often appear to be extensions of one’s worldview and that the punishment of legal and moral
transgressors can be seen as a reaction in defense of one’s worldview.
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Terror Management and the Backfire Effect
Mortality Salience and Evidence Admissibility
On the basis of this previous research, on the surface, we would expect people reminded of their death to be more punitive toward lawbreakers. As a result, mortality
salience could potentially lead jurors to pay undue attention to incriminating inadmissible evidence, exaggerating the backfire effect, because the additional damaging
information provides justification for punitive treatment of the defendant. However,
a closer terror management analysis suggests that mortality salience might be expected to produce conflicting motivations that would instead result in the mitigation
of the backfire effect.
Specifically, although previous research has shown that participants reminded
of their mortality tend to be more punitive toward legal and moral transgressors, part
of this punitive reaction may stem from supporting a worldview that prescribes what
are believed to be fair and just laws. In addition, part of the perceived fairness of laws
may stem from the procedural proscriptions that protect the rights of the accused.
Consistent with this idea, in a series of studies, van den Bos and Miedema (2000;
see also van den Bos, 2001) found that participants reminded of their mortality had
a greater need for procedural fairness. Participants reminded of their mortality in
these studies showed increased positive reactions (e.g., positive affect; support) when
they were confronted with fair rather than unfair procedures compared to control
participants, and showed increased negative reactions when confronted with unfair
relative to fair procedures. Presumably, these reactions occurred because fairness is
an important component of most individuals’ worldview that imbues reality with order and meaning. Therefore, when a judge rules incriminating evidence inadmissible,
the conflict between the procedural instructions designed to protect the defendant
and the substantive instructions that outline the charge may lead to competing motivations for jurors to both protect and convict the defendant. If procedural fairness is
part of an individual’s worldview and mortality has been made salient, jurors may be
more motivated to adhere to the judge’s admonition (that protects a defendant and
provides for a fair trial). This mortality salience provoked desire for fairness should
in turn result in people being less punitive toward a defendant when incriminating
evidence is ruled inadmissible than when it is ruled admissible.
The Role of Justice Orientation
Although there are reasons to expect that mortality salience will mitigate the
backfire effect, there are also reasons to suspect that the effects of mortality salience
and evidence admissibility will be moderated by dispositional or situational factors
that evoke different orientations to justice. A number of prior terror management
studies point to the moderating roles of various personality and situational factors
in response to mortality salience (e.g., Arndt, Greenberg, & Cook, 2002; Greenberg
et al., 1990; Harmon-Jones et al., 1997; McGregor et al., 1998).
In the present context, we wanted to evaluate participants’ orientation toward
following the spirit versus the letter of the law, a distinction otherwise known as
“nullification” (Horowitz, 1985, 1988; Niedermeier, Horowitz, & Kerr, 1999;
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Lieberman & Sales, 1997; Wiener, Habert, Shkodriani, & Staebler, 1991). We reasoned that individuals prone to nullification would be more likely to ignore both
specific procedural and substantive law instructions, and instead use any available
relevant information so that a judgment can be made that upholds the spirit of the
substantive law. When incriminating evidence that would lead toward a conviction of
someone who has broken the spirit of the law exists, nullification prone jurors should
be inclined to reject procedural law governing the admissibility of the evidence. Thus,
nullification prone jurors should be more susceptible to the backfire effect.
However, as previous research has indicated (van den Bos, 2001; van den Bos
& Miedema, 2000), when mortality is made salient, notions of procedural fairness
may become particularly compelling. As procedural law governs the application of
substantive law (e.g., jurors may be instructed to ignore inadmissible evidence when
deciding guilt or innocence), enhanced concerns for procedural fairness may outweigh substantive law motivations within nullification prone jurors, and the backfire
effect therefore may be eliminated. Finally, when procedural fairness concerns are
heightened by mortality salience, but there is not a conflict between procedural and
substantive law, mortality salient individuals should primarily focus on the application of substantive law, and exhibit punitive reactions toward defendants. Thus,
for participants oriented toward nullification, we expect to see significant mortality
salience x evidence admissibility interactions on verdicts. In contrast, we do not necessarily expect to see such interactive effects among those who are oriented toward
strictly following the law. These participants should be less prone to the backfire
effect and thus also less prone to its reversal after mortality salience. These findings
should occur in individuals who are either dispositionally or situationally prone to
nullify the law.
Overview
These hypotheses were tested through two experiments using a jury decisionmaking paradigm. In Study 1, participants completed a packet of questionnaires
that included a measure assessing nullification proneness and then were led to think
of their own mortality or another aversive control topic (dental pain). Participants
then read a trial transcript of a robbery in which critical incriminating evidence was
deemed admissible, inadmissible, or was omitted. The primary dependant variable
was the verdict participants rendered after reading the transcript and jury instructions. Study 2 was designed to replicate and extend the findings of the first experiment
by manipulating justice orientation through judicial instructions.
STUDY 1
Method
Participants and Design
Four to six participants per session were randomly assigned to conditions in a
2 (mortality salience vs. dental pain) × 3 (admissible vs. inadmissible vs. omitted
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evidence) between-subjects design. The primary dependent measure was the verdict
rendered by each participant. One-hundred and thirty one introductory psychology
students (36 males and 91 females) from a large university participated in the study
in return for partial course credit.
Procedure
Upon participants’ arrival, an experimenter, who was blind to experimental
conditions, described the study as looking at the relationship between personality
characteristics and jury decision-making. Participants were informed that the study
would consist of a series of personality questionnaires followed by a trial transcript of
a robbery in which they would be asked to imagine themselves as actual jurors and to
render a verdict based on the information presented in the transcript. The participants
were assured that their responses were anonymous and they completed all materials
in separate cubicles to further ensure a sense of anonymity. After the participants
read and signed a consent form, the experimenter brought them a personality packet,
followed by a transcript, and finally a verdict form. Once all participants had finished,
they were probed for suspicion, thoroughly debriefed, thanked for their time, and
dismissed.
Personality Packet
The mortality salience manipulation was embedded among a series of filler personality questionnaires to lend credence to the cover story. The initial questionnaires
included a measure of nullification proneness based on previous research by Edwards
and Bryan (1997) and Lieberman and Silver (2000). This measure contained eight
statements used to assess nullification proneness. That is, how strongly an individual
feels about upholding the letter versus the spirit of the law. Participants were asked
to rate their agreement with each statement on a 9-point Likert scale with endpoints
1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree). Example items are “A person who has
broken the law should always be punished”; “A victimless crime is not a real crime”;
“When legal guidelines conflict with what may be fair, a juror must uphold the law
at all costs”; and “Laws are made to be broken.” Higher scores indicate a greater
likelihood of relying on one’s own beliefs in deciding what is just, whereas lower
scores indicate a greater tendency to follow the written law.
After completing questions about nullification proneness and other filler questionnaires, as a purported measure of personality, participants completed two openended questions regarding either death or dental pain. This is the most common
mortality salience treatment in terror management research (see Greenberg et al.,
1997), and asks participants to respond to the following two questions: “Please briefly
describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you” and “Jot
down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically die and once you are physically dead.” A dental pain questionnaire was used
as an aversive control topic and the questions were parallel to those of the mortality
salience manipulation.
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Transcript
Participants were presented with a simulated transcript of a case. The evidence
was designed to be ambiguous regarding the defendant’s guilt to allow for variation in
verdicts. The transcript presented a robbery trial in which a young man was accused
of taking money and jewelry at gunpoint from two teenagers parked in a car at
a local park. In addition to the opening and closing statements by the attorneys,
the case included testimony from five witnesses who presented information about
the events of the robbery, the description of the perpetrator, and/or the alibi of the
defendant.
Critical Evidence
Following a procedure used by Thompson, Fong, and Rosenhan (1981), we manipulated the evidence admissibility through a judge’s ruling on a critical aspect of
a detective’s testimony. Specifically, in the two experimental conditions (admissible
and inadmissible), “Detective (Russell),” a witness for the prosecution, testified that
he had been conducting an investigation on an illegal bookmaking operation by another individual, and as part of the investigation, had wiretapped calls made by the
subject of this investigation. From these tapes, the detective learned that the robber
phoned the bookmaker. Critical evidence obtained from the wiretap was presented
in the transcript as follows:
The caller identified himself as [Ian or Rashaun]4 and said, “I finally
got the money to pay you. Can you meet by the basketball courts in
Grant Park at 3:00?”
Prosecution: What was his response to this?
Russell:
The bookmaker asked him “Where the hell did you get the money, you
don’t even have a job” and the caller replied “I jacked a couple of kids
in a car there yesterday.”
Russell:
This testimony was rendered admissible or inadmissible by the judge after the defense
attorney objected to the legality of the wiretap used to obtain the information. In
the inadmissible condition, the transcript read:
Judge: I am not going to allow this. The wiretapping applied only to the operator and
not to his callers. Neither the tape made from the wiretap, nor the detective’s
statements regarding it are admissible. Strike from the record all reference
to the alleged telephone conversation between the defendant and the bookmaker.
Members of the jury, you are hereby ordered to disregard all mention of
that conversation. It is your legal duty to ignore testimony ruled inadmissible
when considering your verdict.
4 The
study also included an additional race manipulation that failed to produce consistent effects on any
measure and is thus not discussed more fully. We manipulated the race of defendant by referring to the
defendant as Ian Jones (White) or Rashaun Jones (Black) and having the witnesses remark on the race
of the defendant as they offered their description.
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The admissible version stated:
Judge: I’m going to allow this. The legality of the wiretapping applied to the bookmaker as well as to his callers.
In a control condition, this critical information and the wiretap were excluded
altogether.
Jury Instructions and Verdict
The participants were then presented with the substantive and procedural instructions that explained the relevant laws and jurors’ duties in the case. Participants
were asked to fulfill their duty as jurors by considering all of the testimony and
exhibits admitted into evidence. Furthermore, the weight of the evidence and the
judgment of credibility of the witnesses rested solely on the juror. The instructions
emphasized that in order to convict the defendant, the jurors must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. The definition for robbery was included to clarify the crime
of which the defendant was accused and the “presumption of innocence” was also
defined. Lastly, participants were informed that “[i]f the commonwealth has failed
to prove the elements of the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt, it is your
duty to find the defendant not guilty.”
The primary elements of our dependent variable, drawn from Pyszczynski,
Greenberg, Mack, and Wrightsman (1981) and Edwards and Bryan (1997), asked
participants to respond to the instruction, “The defendant has been charged with
Robbery. Imagine that you are a real juror in this case. Please consider the evidence,
and render a verdict.” Participants circled one of two phrases: “Guilty of Robbery”
or “Not Guilty.” Participants were then asked to rate “How confident of your verdict
are you?” They responded on a 9-point scale with endpoints of 1 (not at all confident)
and 9 (totally confident).
Impressions of the Case and Defendant
Participants were then asked to rate elements of the case. The questions included:
“How strong was the case presented by the prosecution?” and “How strong was the
case presented by the defendant?” (each rated on a 9-point scale with endpoints 1
(very weak) and 9 (very strong)). The next series of questions asked participants to
rate the defendant on the traits of honesty, likeability, remorse, intelligence, similarity
to the participant, success, sincerity, wealth, and dangerousness (each on 9-point
scales).
Results
Initial analyses of our primary dependent measure included sex of participant
as a factor but because no significant main or interaction effects were found with this
variable (here or in Study 2), it is not discussed further.
Nullification
Before assessing our main hypotheses, we first examined the reliability of the
eight questions designed to index participants’ personal beliefs regarding reliance on
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individual frames of reference when dealing with issues of justice. Cronbach’s alpha
was low (.41).5 After performing a principal axis factor analysis, we did not find a
clear solution, although five of the eight items loaded more highly on the one factor
with an eigenvalue > 1 (loadings > .35), whereas the other three items did not. We
therefore created a composite that averaged only these five items. However, because
there was not a substantial increase in reliability as a result of dropping the three
items (α = .54), and the results of all analyses were similar to those including all
eight items, the analyses reported below included all eight items of the nullification
measure.
Verdicts
The primary dependent measure was the verdict rendered by each participant.
Following Pyszczynski et al. (1981) and Edwards and Bryan (1997), we computed
an index of participants’ verdicts by multiplying their indications of guilty (coded as
+1) or not guilty (coded as −1) by their level of confidence (scored on 9-point Likert
scale) in their verdict. Thus, scores could range from −9 (very confident defendant is
not guilty) to +9 (very confident defendant is guilty).
We performed a median split on responses to the nullification proneness measure and conducted a 2 (high vs. low nullification scores) × 2 (mortality salience
vs. dental pain) × 3 (admissible vs. inadmissible vs. omitted evidence) analysis of
variance (ANOVA). This analysis found a two-way interaction between mortality
salience and evidence, F(2, 126) = 4.41, p < .02, η2 = .07, which was qualified by a
significant three-way interaction between mortality salience, evidence, and nullification, F(2, 126) = 3.15, p < .05, η2 > .05.6 To clarify this interaction effect, we tested
for the simple mortality salience × evidence interactions within the high and low
nullification groups, as this was the one nonmanipulated variable. This revealed that
the mortality salience × evidence interaction was not evident for low nullification
score participants, F < 1 (see Fig. 1), but was quite reliable among the high nullification score participants, F(2, 63) = 8.10, p < .01, η2 = .05 (see Fig. 2). Within this
interaction, high nullification participants in the dental pain conditions who were
told the incriminating evidence was inadmissible were more likely to confidently
convict than were participants in either the admissible evidence condition or the
no-evidence control condition, both ts > 2.14, ps < .04. Thus, in the absence of mortality salience, the typical backfire effect was pronounced among those individuals
whose intuitive beliefs of justice guide their legal decisions. In contrast, among mortality salient high nullification score participants, inadmissible instructions lead to
reduced guilty verdicts relative to their admissible and no-evidence counterparts,
both ts > 2.00, ps ≤ .05. Looked at differently, mortality salient high nullification
5 We
address the low reliability of these questions both in Study 2 and in the General Discussion section.
6 A multiple regression was performed between the verdicts as the dependent variable and salience, nulli-
fication, and evidence as the independent variables. Evidence was dummy-coded since there were three
levels of this categorical variable. The main effects were entered, then the two-way interactions, and then
the three-way interactions. The full model was significant, F(11, 115) = 1.97, p < .05, and accounted for
15.9% of the variance in the verdict. Further, the regression coefficients for the three-way interaction between salience, nullification, and inadmissible evidence (dummy-coded) replicated the ANOVA findings,
β = −2.19, F(1, 125) = 7.26, p < .01.
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Fig. 1. Evidence × Salience interaction among low nullification participants’ verdicts in Study 1.
Note: Higher positive numbers reflect more confident guilty verdicts whereas higher negative
numbers reflect more confident not guilty verdicts.
participants were slightly more likely to vote guilty than their dental pain counterparts in the no-evidence control condition, t(63) = 1.54, p < .13, and were significantly more likely to vote guilty in the admissible evidence conditions than their
dental pain counterparts, t(63) = 2.00, p < .05. However, mortality salient high nullification participants were significantly less likely to vote guilty than their dental pain
counterparts when the incriminating evidence was ruled inadmissible, t(63) = 3.15,
p < .01.
Supplemental Questions on Impressions of the Case
We then turned to examine whether participants’ perceptions of the case, as
assessed with the questions that followed their verdicts, were similarly affected via 2
(justice nullification group) × 2 (mortality salience) × 3 (evidence) ANOVAs.
Fig. 2. Evidence × Salience interaction among high nullification participants’ verdicts in Study 1.
Note: Higher positive numbers reflect more confident guilty verdicts whereas higher negative numbers
reflect more confident not guilty verdicts.
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Mortality salience × Evidence interaction on the impressions of the prosecutions’s case in
Study 1. Note: Higher numbers reflect a stronger impression of the prosecution’s case.
With respect to participants’ perceived strength of the prosecution’s case, only a
mortality salience by evidence interaction was obtained, F(2, 130) = 5.05, p < .01,
η2 = .08, all other Fs < 1.70, ps > .19. The cell means are displayed in Fig. 3 and
reflect a pattern that mirrors the previous patterns of high nullification participants
on verdicts. Dental pain participants thought the prosecution’s case was stronger
when the incriminating evidence was ruled inadmissible compared to the no evidence condition, t(130) = 2.29, p < .03, but the inadmissible condition was not significantly stronger than the admissible condition, t < 1. Mortality salient participants
in contrast, tended to rate the prosecution’s case as weaker in the inadmissible versus no evidence condition, t(130) = 1.73, p < .09, and admissible condition, t(130) =
2.65, p < .01.
A 2 (justice nullification group) × 2 (salience) × 3 (evidence) ANOVA on
perceived strength of the defense’s case revealed no main effects or interactions, all
Fs < 1.87, ps > .23.
Defendant Trait Ratings
To analyze the impact of these treatments on participants’ trait ratings of the defendant, we created a composite that averaged participants’ ratings on the eight traits
after reverse scoring the negative trait items (e.g., dishonest), Cronbach’s α = .67.
Thus, higher scores indicate more positive ratings. There was a significant mortality salience by evidence interaction, F(2, 130) = 4.63, p < .02, η2 = .07, all other
Fs < 1.85, ps > .16. Figure 4 presents these means. The nature of this interaction
was also consistent with the mortality salience × evidence interaction previously
described, although many of these comparisons did not reach significance. Whereas
dental pain participants tended to rate the defendant less positively in the inadmissible evidence condition than in the admissible condition, t(130) = 2.86, p < .01,
mortality salient participants rated the defendant more positively in the inadmissible
condition relative to the others, both ts > 1.50, ps < .14. In the inadmissible evidence
condition, mortality salient participants evaluated the defendant more positively than
did dental pain participants, t(130) = 2.40, p < .02.
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Fig. 4.
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Mortality salience × Evidence interaction on defendant trait ratings in Study 1. Note: Higher
numbers reflect more positive evaluations of the defendant.
Discussion
This study hypothesized that the backfire effect would primarily emerge among
participants who rely on their own intuitions of justice to guide legal decisions and
that this effect would be mitigated by reminding participants of their death. The
results offer support for these ideas. The present study successfully replicated the
backfire effect, but only in the absence of mortality salience and among participants
who scored high on the nullification proneness measure. This suggests that in situations not involving heightened concern with mortality, inadmissible evidence may
only be more influential than admissible evidence when people follow their own intuitions of justice. However, when mortality is made salient, a very different pattern
emerges. Indeed, among high nullification participants, mortality salience actually
reversed the backfire effect: mortality salient participants were less punitive in the
inadmissible condition compared to the admissible and control conditions. According to the present analysis, this pattern occurs because mortality salience leads people
to defend a worldview that often includes upholding the law and an increased desire
for fairness.
The supplemental questions, however, were not fully consistent with the results
found with participants’ verdicts. With regard to perceived strength of the prosecution’s case and the defendant trait ratings, only mortality salience by evidence
interactions were found and not the three-way interactions involving nullification.
However, both of these patterns were consistent with a mortality salience induced
reversal of the backfire effect: dental pain participants rated the prosecution’s case
as stronger and the defendant more negatively in the inadmissible compared to the
admissible conditions whereas mortality salience participants showed a reversed pattern. We return to the issue of how perceptions of the case may relate to verdicts in
the General Discussion section.
Overall, the present findings are provocative because they suggest that motivations in legal context may shift under mortality salience in a way that is further
moderated by nullification proneness. However, confidence in the role of nullification
in these effects must be cautioned. The measure we designed to index nullification
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beliefs, though based on measures used successfully in prior research (Lieberman &
Silver, 2000) and conforming to the predicted pattern, did not show conventionally
acceptable reliability in this study. Presumably, the effects would only be strengthened by the use of a more reliable measure of nullification proneness. However,
to increase confidence in our findings, we conducted a second study to address this
limitation.
STUDY 2
This experiment was designed to replicate and extend the results of Study 1.
Whereas the previous study met with only marginal success in measuring nullification beliefs, in this study we opted to manipulate whether participants relied on their
personal feelings or strictly followed the law in rendering their decision. Thus, when
participants were given their jury instructions, these instructions included text that
informed them as to whether they should follow their own consciences or strictly
adhere to the law. It should be noted that several states such as Maryland provide
jury instructions that specifically inform jurors as to their nullification powers. We
again predicted that the backfire effect should emerge primarily in the absence of
mortality salience among participants instructed to base their decision upon personal
feelings. However, after mortality salience, participants who receive the justice nullification instructions should be more punitive in the admissible than inadmissible
conditions. Such convergent results using this quite different operationalization of
justice nullification would offer strong support for the present analysis.
Method
Design and Procedure
Participants were randomly assigned to conditions in a 2 (mortality salience vs.
dental pain) × 2 (admissible or inadmissible evidence) × 2 (justice orientation: nullification or law) between-subjects design. The primary dependent measure was again
the verdict rendered by each participant. One-hundred and twenty one introductory
psychology students (56 males and 63 females) from a large university participated
in the study in return for partial course credit. The materials and procedure were the
same as in Study 1 with the exceptions noted below.
Personality Packet
The only change to the initial personality packet was the omission of measuring
nullification proneness. The packet included the same mortality salience and dental
pain manipulations as in Study 1.
Transcript
The transcripts were identical to those used for Study 1. However, we did not
include a “no-evidence” condition because the results of Study 1 revealed that the
no-evidence conditions were generally similar to the admissible conditions.
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Jury Instructions
The jury instructions were simplified to emphasize the nullification versus legal
components of the instructions. These key components were presented in bold-face
type to draw participants’ attention to them. The nullification instructions, based
on Maryland nullification instructions and materials used in previous research by
Horowitz (1985, 1988), stated:
Although you, as a jury, are a public body bound to give respectful attention to the laws,
you have the final authority to decide whether or not to apply a given law, or the court’s
interpretation of it, to the acts of the defendant. You represent your community, and it
is appropriate to consider the feelings of the community, and your own feelings based on
conscience, in reaching your decision.
The law orientation instructions stated:
The cornerstone of every nation is its justice system. Without a justice system, the important
cultural values and moral standards of a community can not be upheld. Justice means
protecting citizens and the public interest through the enforcement of laws. In order for
justice to be carried out, it is important that all defendants are treated in a fair and equitable
manner under the law. If jurors do not uphold the laws they are presented with, then it is
impossible for the legal system to operate in a fair manner. You are not permitted to change
the law, nor apply your own conception of what you think the law should be.
Additionally, definitions for presumption of innocence and robbery were provided
in the jury instructions.
Verdict Form
The primary dependant variable, participants’ verdicts, was measured as in Study
1, by combining the dichotomous verdict (guilty or not guilty) with the participant’s
confidence rating.
Impressions of the Case and Defendant
The questions assessing the impressions of the case and the defendant were
identical to Study 1. However, two questions were added to assess the effectiveness
of the instruction manipulation. The questions asked, “Did the judge inform you that
your personal feelings might be considered when rendering a verdict?” and “Did the
judge inform you about the importance of following the law as it is presented to
you?” Each answer was indicated on a 9-point Likert-type scale with endpoints of 1
(he definitely did not) and 9 (he definitely did).
Results
Manipulation Checks
In order to check that participants were aware of the judge’s justice orientation
instructions, we conducted a one-way ANOVA for justice orientation on each of the
two manipulation check variables (judge’s emphasis of feelings and the judge’s emphasis of the law). The first analysis revealed a main effect of jury instructions on the
item “Did the judge inform you that your personal feelings might be considered when
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rendering a verdict,” F(1, 120) = 5.92, p < .02, η2 = .05 Nullification-oriented participants were more likely to indicate that they were told to consider their personal
feelings compared to the law-oriented participants (Ms = 5.29 vs. 4.05, respectively).
A second ANOVA conducted on responses to the question “Did the judge inform
you about the importance of the following the law as it is presented to you?” also
revealed a main effect for justice orientation, F(1, 120) = 6.08, p < .02, η2 = .05.
Here law-oriented participants were significantly more certain that they had been
told the importance of following the law, M = 7.69, compared to the responses of
the nullification-oriented group, M = 6.77. These results suggest that the justice orientation manipulation was effective.
Verdict
Verdict scores were computed as in Study 1. A 2 (mortality salience vs. dental
pain) × 2 (admissible vs. inadmissible evidence) × 2 (law vs. nullification orientation)
ANOVA revealed a main effect for evidence, F(1, 117) = 8.13, p < .01, η2 = .07,
which was qualified by the predicted three-way interaction between mortality
salience, evidence, and justice orientation, F(1, 117) = 3.95, p < .05, η2 = .03. Following the strategy of Study 1, this interaction was further explored through separate
ANOVAs within the justice orientation groups (see Figs. 5 and 6). For law-oriented
participants, there was a main effect for evidence, F(1, 57) = 10.52, p < .01, η2 = .17.
The means suggested that overall, law-oriented participants followed the evidence
instructions, showing greater punitiveness in the admissible, M = 3.24, compared
to inadmissible evidence conditions, M = −2.58. For nullification-oriented participants, however, the ANOVA revealed the predicted mortality salience by evidence interaction, F(1, 59) = 4.38, p < .05, η2 = .09. As in Study 1, mortality salient
participants were more punitive in the admissible compared to the inadmissible condition, t(59) = 2.03, p < .05. However among dental pain participants, the means
Fig. 5. Evidence × Salience interaction among law-oriented participants’ verdicts in Study 2. Note:
Higher positive numbers reflect more confident guilty verdicts whereas higher negative numbers reflect
more confident not guilty verdicts.
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Fig. 6. Evidence × Salience interaction among nullification-oriented participants’ verdicts in Study 2.
Note: Higher positive numbers reflect more confident guilty verdicts whereas higher negative numbers
reflect more confident not guilty verdicts.
were in the direction of a backfire effect, although the difference was not significant, t(59) < 1. Looked at differently, whereas the nullification orientated mortality
salient condition showed a nonsignificant trend to be less punitive than their dental
pain counterparts when the evidence was inadmissible, t < 1, they were significantly
more likely than their dental pain counterparts to vote guilty when the evidence was
admissible, t(59) = 2.04, p < .05.
Although the difference between the evidence conditions was not significant
within the nullification-oriented dental pain conditions, it may be informative to
note that participants in this condition showed the predicted effects relative to laworiented dental pain participants. That is, in the dental pain conditions, nullificationoriented participants tended to be less punitive than law-oriented participants in
the admissible conditions, t = 1.65, p < .11, but significantly more punitive in the
inadmissible conditions, t(59) = 2.02, p = .05.
Supplemental Questions on Impressions of the Case
We then assessed whether the interactive effects of the manipulations extended
to participants’ perceptions of the case, as assessed with the questions after they
rendered their verdicts. Two 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVAs on participants’ ratings of both the
prosecution’s and defense’s case revealed main effects for evidence, both Fs > 6.89,
ps ≤ .01, η2 s = .06, all other Fs < 2.22, ps > .13. The means indicate that overall,
participants felt the prosecution’s case was stronger when the wiretapped evidence
was admissible (M = 6.68) than when it was inadmissible (M = 5.84). Likewise, participants rated the defense’s case as stronger when the wiretap was inadmissible
(M = 5.31) than when it was admissible (M = 4.37).
Defendant Trait Ratings
The trait ratings were averaged after reverse scoring the appropriate items so
that higher scores reflected more positive evaluations of the defendant (α = .79).
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A 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVA revealed only a marginal main effect for justice orientation,
F(1, 120) = 3.22, p < .08, η2 = .03, suggesting a trend in which law-oriented participants rated the defendant more positively (M = 4.17) compared to nullificationoriented participants (M = 3.81), all other Fs < 1.48, ps > .22.
Discussion
The results of Study 2 generally replicate and extend the findings from Study 1.
This study again uncovered a three-way interaction between mortality salience,
evidence admissibility, and justice orientation on mock juror verdicts even though
a markedly different operationalization of justice orientation was employed. More
specifically, nullification-oriented participants tended to be more prone to a backfire
effect in the dental pain conditions, a trend which mortality salience again significantly reversed. Mortality salient nullification-oriented participants were more punitive when the incriminating evidence was admissible than when it was inadmissible.
Unlike in Study 1, however, there was only a main effect of admissibility on the
supplemental questions about case perceptions. We return to this and other issues in
the General Discussion section.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The backfire effect, whereby people are more influenced by inadmissible than
admissible evidence, is a phenomenon that can obviously have important implications
for the integrity of the trial process. Thus, the present studies sought to explore how
certain psychological motivations can operate in legal contexts to influence backfire
effect manifestation. Drawing from previous terror management research showing
that reminding participants of their mortality engenders motivations to uphold cultural worldviews, we reasoned that because most worldviews stipulate beliefs about
fairness, part of the motivational profile evoked by mortality salience should lead participants to follow judicial instructions to ignore incriminating evidence. Moreover,
we reasoned that both the backfire effect, and thus the mortality salience induced reversal, would be more prominent when participants approached the legal judgment
using their personal intuitions about justice. The results of two studies offer support
for this analysis. In Study 1, the backfire effect emerged among participants who
were dispositionally prone to nullify the law and Study 2 generally showed the same
pattern when participants were given judicial instructions to rely on their personal
feelings. However, under these same conditions, reminding participants of their mortality led them to be more punitive when the incriminating evidence was admissible
than when it was inadmissible.
LIMITATIONS OF THE PRESENT STUDIES
Although the present findings offer encouraging support for the relevance of
psychological motivations in jury decision-making, there are ambiguities with the
data that should be noted. Whereas the admissible conditions are similar in both
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studies, within the inadmissible conditions the patterns are less clear. For example, in Study 1 it was only high nullification participants who were significantly less
punitive in the inadmissible mortality salient condition. But in Study 2, mortality
salient participants in the inadmissible conditions generally found the defendant less
culpable regardless of the justice orientation. These differential findings may stem
from different components of people’s worldview being activated by the judicial instructions, from participants’ difficulty in fully following the judicial instructions (see
Lieberman & Sales, 1997), or some combination of both. In Study 1, the instructions
were written in typical pattern instruction style, which often is dry and difficult to
follow (Lieberman & Sales, 1997). Such language may have caused jurors to become
bored and instead rely on their commonsense beliefs about justice (Finkel, 2000),
that were then enhanced by mortality salience effects. However, for the purpose of
Study 2, it was important that participants focused on the relevant instruction manipulation. As a result, dry and confusing language was removed, as were extraneous
phrases. Thus, it may have been easier for jurors to understand and adhere to the
instructions.
If this was indeed the case, then it is not surprising that in Study 2 mortality
salient inadmissible participants tended to have less guilty verdicts with both the
nullification and the law-oriented instructions as the latter may have inadvertently
emphasized procedural fairness. Clearly, further research is needed to clarify this
issue, and thus, conclusions must be tempered with caution. However, given that the
two-way interactions between evidence admissibility and judicial instruction were
not significant and the patterns are generally consistent across studies, the present
findings can be viewed as an informative beginning to understanding how psychological motivations can play a role in the backfire effect.
It is also worth noting that whereas in Study 1 responses to the supplemental
questions generally mirrored the verdict responses, in Study 2 there was no evidence
that the supplemental questions tapped judgment domains that informed participants’ verdicts. Interestingly, in Study 2 the ratings of the prosecution’s and defense’s
case were consistent with what “should” be the case if participants were following
judicial instructions (i.e., perceiving the prosecution’s case as stronger and the defense’s case as weaker in the admissible versus inadmissible conditions). As the classic
work of Nisbett and Wilson (1977) would suggest, it may be that participants lacked
access to the cognitions that lead to their verdicts. In addition, this effect may also
have emerged as a result of the manipulation check questions that directly preceded
these judgments. That is, reminding participants of the judicial instructions may have
primed them to think about evidence admissibility when rating their perceptions of
the case.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF TERROR MANAGEMENT TO
UNDERSTANDING JURY DECISION-MAKING
Terror management theory offers a broad account of human motivation and
provides one avenue for understanding how often peripheral social psychological
motivations may influence jury decision-making. Moreover, as shown by the present
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work, the theory informs how potentially discrepant motivations provoked by reminders of death can be reconciled in a legal context. On the one hand, mortality
salience evokes the motivation to be more punitive toward someone who violates
the worldview by breaking the law. On the other hand, there is also the motivation
to uphold the law by following a judicial ruling. At least with the paradigm used in
this research, the motivation to follow legal guidelines appeared to be the stronger
of the two.
As suggested by Lieberman et al. (2001), however, it is unlikely that people will
always try to be oriented toward fairness after being reminded of death (cf. van den
Bos & Miedema, 2000), and that a number of additional factors play a role in determining which defensive response will predominate. Previous terror management
research suggests that mortality salience effects are often swayed by salient components of an individual’s worldview. Thus, in the present studies, the mortality salience
induced desire for procedural fairness may have emerged because the mock-trial scenario participants were presented with created situations where fair treatment of the
defendant became an important issue and there were minimal competing demands. It
may be that in other situations, mortality salience may lead participants to respond
in an especially punitive manner, even if they lack the legal justification to do so.
For example, if the defendant was charged with a crime that produced great harm
(e.g., aggravated assault, sexual assault, murder) individuals’ desire to punish the law
breaker might override their procedural fairness concerns. Also, increased punitive
reactions might be particularly likely in situations where the defendant is a threat to
a critically important domain of an individual’s worldview, for example, if a Muslim
was charged with a crime in the United States following the September 11th attacks.
Legal scenarios may thus provide a way to tease apart important issues pertaining to
different routes of psychological defense engaged by reminders of death.
This may be especially relevant when one considers the potential for legal scenarios to activate concerns related to mortality. Although death-related cognitions
are not systematically manipulated in trials, mortality salience may be inadvertently
induced in a variety of ways in the course of legal proceedings (Arndt et al., 2003).
For example, Judges (1999) suggests that the consideration of capital punishment is
a mortality salience induction itself, leading to even more punitive reactions toward
moral and legal transgressors. In addition, research (Cook, Arndt, & Lieberman,
2003; Pickel & Brown, 2002) has recently found that closing arguments in a simulated trial that remind participants of their mortality can increase punitive judgments
in robbery, assault, and murder cases. One important direction for future research
may be to further explore how existential motivations for psychological defense affect legal outcomes. Further, the application of terror management theory to legal
settings could be a fruitful means to understand the consequences of death-related
thought as such settings lend themselves to the juxtaposition of multiple motivational
pressures.
IMPLICATIONS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE BACKFIRE EFFECT
In addition to exploring the motivations provoked by the awareness of death,
the findings of Study 2 indicate that jury instructions emphasizing legal responsibil-
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ity to uphold the law reduced the backfire effect whereas instructions emphasizing
nullification powers did not. Much previous nullification research has focused on
the effects of informing jurors of their nullification power on the application of
substantive instructions (i.e., specific charges against the defendant). Extant studies have generally shown that jurors prudently use their nullification powers to acquit defendants whom they believe have violated the letter, but not the spirit, of
the law (e.g., Horowitz, 1985, 1988; Niedermeier et al., 1999). The results of the
present studies extend this line of research, and suggest that nullification instructions may also encourage jurors to rely on their personal feelings when considering
procedural instructions. That is, jurors may be less likely to adhere to judicial admonitions after being given nullification instructions. Taken with the dispositional
findings from Study 1, this suggests that future research could benefit from exploring
such factors in reactions to different types of inadmissible evidence cases (Pickel,
1995).
CONCLUSION
The present research provides insight into two factors that may influence the
backfire-effect–nullification-beliefs and mortality salience. We are certainly not suggesting that mortality salience be used in trials as a tool to encourage procedural
compliance. However, on the basis of current findings as well as other research,
there is reason to believe that reminders of death can be a useful empirical tool for
exploring how psychological factors can impact legal judgments. Hopefully with this
and further studies, continued progress can be made toward facilitating the most
equitable administration of the law.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We thank Paula Emke, Marcus Johnson, Michelle Nard, and Alison Wooddell
for their help with collecting the data.
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