TY  - JOUR
A1  - Engel, Christoph
A1  - Timme, Sinika
A1  - Glöckner, Andreas
T1  - Coherence-based reasoning and order effects in legal judgments
T2  - Psychology, public policy and law
N2  - According to coherence-based models of legal judgment, individuals form coherent mental representations to make sense of the available evidence. In this process, evidence supporting the emerging assessment is accentuated, resulting in coherence effects. Dependent on specific implementations of coherence-based models, in legal tasks both overweighting of evidence that is presented early (a primacy effect) or late (a recency effect) can be predicted. In two studies (N-1 = 221, N-2 = 332), we investigate coherence effects, order effects, and their interrelation in a mock legal case. We manipulate the order in which the evidence is presented, and whether or not individuals are induced to assess provisionally whether they deem the defendant guilty after seeing half of the evidence (leaning). This leaning manipulation should increase primacy effects. We consistently observed recency effects and no stronger influence of primacy effects when people indicate a leaning. Order and leaning did not influence the magnitude of coherence effects. In contrast to previous findings in consumer research and risky choice tasks, coherence effects did not mediate the effect of the order in which the evidence in legal judgments is presented. If our results hold more generally, coherence-based models of legal judgment might have to be revised to give more weight to recency effects as compared to the typically predicted primacy effects. This revision would have implications for the design of criminal procedure.
KW  - legal judgment
KW  - coherence effects
KW  - primacy and recency effects
KW  - order
KW  - effects
KW  - leaning
Y1  - 2020
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/60207
SN  - 1076-8971
SN  - 1939-1528
VL  - 26
IS  - 3
SP  - 333
EP  - 352
PB  - American Psychological Association
CY  - Washington
ER  -