• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.59-84
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• 2005

Three studies were conducted to examine the degree to which three common heuristics, anchoring heuristic, framing effect and representative-ness heuristic, influence the decision-making precesses of actual judges and 5-persons mock juries. With scenarios regarding various issues that are commonly raised in actual criminal and civil trials, study 1 examined the 158 actual judges' decisions. In study 2, the decisions of 80 mock jury groups that consisted of college students were examined with similar scenarios. And individual decisions were examined in study 3 to compare with the group decisions in study 2. The decision processes of the actual judges and the mock jury groups alike were found to be influenced by "anchors". But the biases by the anchoring heuristic were more pronounced in the group decisions than in the decisions of the actual judges. With respect to framing effect, the actual judges were found to be resistant, while a small effect was found in the decisions of mock jury groups. Representative-ness biases weren't found in the decisions of both the actual judges and mock juries. The implications of the results for judicial systems were discussed.