Rape Myth Effects on Juror Decisions in Deliberations of Rape Cases: How Rape Myths Affect Jury Deliberations

Members of juries hold bias, whether implicitly or explicitly. This study determines that jury members do not always change their bias after deliberations, especially in rape cases, but that some may change if they are challenged. Through pre-tests, jury deliberations, and post-tests this study monitored the participants’ biases in order to determine if these biases affected their behavior during the deliberation. This study found that participants tended to self-censor, suppressing their rape biases, instead of stating them explicitly to the group. However, many of the participants did change their minds on the rape myths that were involved in the case and seemed to internalize an understanding of why the myths they had endorsed earlier were wrong