Differences in Decision Making Processes in the Lay Judge System : A Comparison of Citizens in 2007 and 2012

This study examined the relationship between the amount of legal knowledge, knowledge of the lay judge system, cognitive factors (i.e., perceived risk to one’s life, perceived cost to act as a saiban-in “lay judge, ” perceived benefit to act as a saiban-in), emotions (anxiety, stress, and anticipated regret), and behaviors (i.e., intentions and requests to act as a saiban-in) in the lay judge system. First, we surveyed a sample of 307 citizens in 2007 and 700 citizens in 2012, and compared the decision-making processes in these two years using structural equation modeling. The results indicated that the effect of perceived benefit to act as a saiban-in on intentions was weaker in 2012 than 2007. In contrast, the effect of perceived cost was stronger in 2012 than in 2007. This may explain why the intention to act as a saiban-in was low in 2012, despite the greater knowledge of saiban-in processes in 2012 than in 2007. Second, the groups in 2012 were (1) males with a decision-making style defined by low responsibility scores, (2) males with high responsibility scores, (3) females with low scores, and (4) females with high scores. We examined the decision-making processes among the groups. For all groups, there was a cognitive process that perceived risk to one’s life affected intentions to act as a saiban-in, mediated by the perceived cost to act as a saiban-in. However, emo- tional process differed among groups. Therefore, in order to increase intentions to act a saiban-in, it is necessary to provide information that draws on individual differences (e.g., gender, decision-making style), particularly including emotional content