Gender-specific decoding and integration of nonverbal information in civil case rulings

The presentation of evidence in 15 videotaped civil-court cases was communicated to 72 women and 72 men in one of four modes: Video & Sound, Video Only, Sound Only, and Transcript. Every 30 sec the subjects inicated how much money the plaintiff should be awarded and their confidence in that decision; Measures of individual accuracy (deviations from the judge's verdict) and homogeneity within each group of six subjects were obtained. To examine further the relative impact of nonverbally presented emotional information, multiple time- series methodology was used. Another 48 subjects rated the relative credibility of the litigants. The findings indicate that, for men, the facial configurations and body language of the litigants did not predict the verdicts. However, women's relative sensitivity to nonverbal information was not associated with greater accuracy. Also, women were more homogeneous than men in the Video Only condition, but less confident, especially in the Transcript condition. The effects of the litigant's perceived credibility were dependent on the presence of verbal content. The discussion focused especially on the extent to which jurors' overreliance on nonverbal information (particularly of an emotional nature) may be detrimental in legal decision making.