Footing as Influence Strategies During Small Group Discussion

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Trial by jury is central to the American justice system yet little is known about influence processes during jury deliberation because rarely are such discussions made public, and for good reason—a juror must perceive that his comments are confidential in order for the process to have some semblance of legitimacy. Without such confidentiality, one wonders if jurors are deliberating in good faith or are somehow inhibited by or acting for the cameras. Instead, it is much more common for social science researchers to rely on mock juries which, up to a point, provide interesting and useful data regarding jury processes, but cannot simulate in any meaningful way the real and often lifechanging outcomes associated with our judicial system (e.g., McMahon & Fehr, 1984). But in those rare cases when deliberations are recorded and the recordings made available for inspection, one is struck by the process itself, including the level of engagement and passion (especially compared to laboratory groups) and the means by which participants attempt to influence one another. This is just what happened when several colleagues and I were provided access to the jury deliberations in the case State of Ohio v. Mark Ducic; the defendant was accused and ultimately convicted of a double murder. The fruits of our efforts to analyze these deliberations comprised an issue of Small Group Research (Keyton & Beck, 2010; Meyers, Seibold, & Kang, 2010; Poole & Dobosh, 2010; Sanders & Bonito, 2010; SunWolf, 2010).