What makes recovered-memory testimony compelling to jurors?

Little is known about how jurors arrive at verdicts in cases involving reco vered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Study 1 investigated mock jurors' reactions to the recovered-memory testimony of an alleged victim when a th erapist intervened with hypnosis, suggestion, or symptom management. When a therapist used hypnosis, jurors viewed the victim's recovered-memory testi mony as particularly accurate and credible, and favored the victim in their verdicts. In Study 2, mock jurors were presented with a therapist who was sued for allegedly influencing a client's recall of false memories of abuse . In this ease, however, jurors viewed therapists who used hypnosis or sugg estion as more likely to have created false memories, more responsible for having caused harm, and less competent, and tended not to favor these thera pists in their verdicts. We discuss these seemingly contradictory findings in terms of how culturally formed expectancies about hypnosis produce diffe rent causal explanations depending on the focus of a trial.