Picturing Pain and Suffering: Effects of Demonstrative Evidence, Instructions, and Plaintiff Credibility on Mock Jurors' Damage Awards

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of demonstrative evidence on mock jurors' pain and suffering damage awards and the psychological processes underlying those effects. Participants read excerpts from the plaintiff's and his expert's testimony and saw photo simulations of the plaintiff's visual impairments that they were instructed to treat either as substantive evidence or illustrative aids, or saw no simulations. Par- ticipants who saw demonstrative evidence of the plaintiff's impaired vision awarded him significantly more pain and suffering damages than did those who did not. The effect was mediated by the judged severity of the plaintiff's suffering: Those who saw demonstrative evidence awarded more damages in part because they judged the plaintiff's suffering from his visual impairments to be more severe than those who did not. Participants differentiated between substantive and illustrative demonstra- tive evidence in several respects but in two of three studies did not award signifi- cantly different amounts of damages.

Keywords: damage awards, evidence, jury instructions, legal decision making