EXAMINING THE THEORY OF AVERSIVE RACISM: DOES DEFENDANT IMMIGRANT STATUS AND ETHNICITY, AND JUROR GENDER CONTRIBUTE TO JUROR BIAS?

Implicit bias by jurors towards immigrants in the United States legal system has become a main focus within law and psychology literature. Aversive racism theory suggests that people may hold egalitarian values, however, they may unconsciously hold negative attitudes about out-groups and express them very indirectly and subtly. The purpose of this study was to examine prejudicial attitudes towards immigrants by European American mock jurors and examine if the theory of aversive racism could best explain such prejudice. In a mock juror study, 283 European American participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 (immigration status: legal or illegal) X 2 (Country of origin: Canada or Mexico) between-groups design. The measured variable of juror gender was also examined (gender: male or female) to complete eight conditions in a 2X2X2 between-groups design. Participants acted as mock jurors and read a case trial transcript, provided a verdict, recommended a sentence, answered various questions regarding culpability, rated the defendant on a number of trait measures, answered questions pertaining to the specific details of the crime and defendant, and provided personal demographic information. Based on prior research, it was hypothesized that European American male jurors would find undocumented immigrant defendants from Mexico guilty significantly more often, recommend lengthier sentences, more culpable, and rate them more negatively on trait measures compared with all other conditions. Jurors demonstrated bias based on the interactive effects of the independent measures. Limitations and future directions are discussed