An exploration of psychological and physical injury schemas in civil cases

Abstract

SummaryCivil plaintiffs often seek compensation for their psychological injuries. Yet little is known about jurors' preconceived notions (or schemas) for a prospective plaintiff's pain and suffering. The present studies examined (a) whether jurors have psychological injury schemas (Studies 1 and 2), (b) whether their existence and development vary by the type of civil case (Studies 1 and 2) or its severity (Study 2), and (c) how psychological injury schemas compare with physical injury schemas on a number of theoretically and legally relevant judgments (e.g., injury severity, availability, and plaintiff credibility; Study 2). Study 1 (N = 233) presented undergraduate mock jurors with 2 negligence incidents (car accident and slip and fall) and 2 intentional tort incidents (sexual assault and kidnapping) and asked them to report the typical incident and injuries that would result from the defendant's conduct. Results supported the sparse existence of psychological injury schemas but found that they were more developed in the kidnapping and sexual assault incidents than in the car accident and slip and fall incidents. Study 2 (N = 288) additionally manipulated incident schema severity (mild vs. severe) while having participants separately report and rate their psychological and physical injury schemas on judgments of legal and theoretical interest. Results indicated that although mock jurors' psychological injury schemas contained fewer injuries than their physical injury schemas, the reported psychological injuries were rated as more severe than physical injuries. We discuss how schemas may underlie the disparate treatment of psychological and physical injuries by legal decision‐makers.

Schematic expectations influence mock jurors' sexual violence case fact recognition

“…In fact, research has identified the existence of a consistent, yet amorphous sexual violence schema. For instance, the severity of sexual violence (i.e., mild vs. severe) influenced perceptions of victim‐perpetrator relationships (i.e., only in mild cases did participants expect the offender to be an acquaintance) and injury to the victim (i.e., only in severe cases are victims likely to experience injury; Vallano & McQuiston, 2018). These results suggest that participants downplay the potential severity of the most frequent sexual violence type—acquaintance assaults (Seto et al, 2015).…”

“…Indeed, processing and interpretation of sexual violence crimes is heavily guided by schematic expectations. For example, when compared to schemas for other civil wrongs, sexual violence schemas contained a higher number of details pertaining to injury (with the exception of a car accident; Vallano & McQuiston, 2018). Unfortunately, it has long been recognized that there is limited research on jurors' memory (Levinson, 2007), and to our knowledge this limited field of research has not been extended to sexual violence.…”

“…Research comparing victim blaming in a case of robbery and sexual violence found victims of sexual violence were consistently attributed greater blame for the incident than robbery victims (Bieneck & Krahé, 2011). Given the differences in sexual violence schemas (e.g., Vallano & McQuiston, 2018) and the unique blame directed towards victims of sexual violence (e.g., Bieneck & Krahé, 2011; Stuart et al, 2019), it is important to extend previous research looking at the influence of schemas on jurors' case memory of burglary (e.g., Smith & Studebaker, 1996) to other crimes. Therefore, we sought to identify the influence of sexual violence schematic expectancies and the violation of those expectancies on trier of facts' recognition of case facts.…”

“…Imagine that a jury must evaluate an instance of sexual violence. Despite the fact that victims' behavior before attacks is usually not mentioned at trial, research suggests that people's expectations based on sexual violence schemas can influence their evaluation of the event (e.g., Vallano & McQuiston, 2018; Vallano & Slapinski, 2018). Even more troubling is that jurors may then discuss how the victim's behavior prompted the sexual violence.…”

Can neuroimaging prove pain and suffering?: The influence of pain assessment techniques on legal judgments of physical versus emotional pain.

“…Judges are also particularly skeptical of emotional damages, due to concerns over malingering and potentially excessive damage awards (Kritzer et al, 2014). Although there is very little research that specifically compares physical and emotional pain claims, relevant research that does exist demonstrated that mock jurors were more likely to think of physical injuries than emotional injuries when asked to list injuries that a typical person would suffer as a result of a variety of incidents that could lead to either civil or criminal litigation (e.g., car accidents, slip and falls, kidnappings, and sexual assaults; Hart et al, 1997; Vallano & McQuiston, 2018).…”