DOES EXPERT PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTIMONY INFORM OR INFLUENCE JUROR DECISION-MAKING - A SOCIAL COGNITIVE ANALYSIS

The authors examined whether expert testimony serves an educational or a persuasive function. Participants watched a simulated sexual abuse trial in which the child witness had been prepared for her testimony ( i.e., she was calm, composed, and confident) or unprepared (i.e., emot ional, confused, and uncertain). The trial contained different levels of expert testimony: none, standard (i.e., a summary of the research), repetitive (i.e., standard testimony plus a 2nd summary of the resear ch), or concrete (i.e., standard testimony plus a hypothetical scenari o linking the research to the case facts) testimony. Repetitive testim ony bolstered the child's testimony, whereas concrete and standard tes timony did not. Concrete testimony sensitized jurors to behavioral cor relates of sexual victimization; standard and repetitive testimony des ensitized jurors to these correlates. Implications for the use of proc edural innovations in sexual abuse trials are discussed.