Jurors punish in-group members harsher than outsiders when evidence is strong

Evidence

In some cases, however, social identity theory predicts harsher judgments for in-group members. For example, the “black sheep” hypothesis suggests that people will punish in-group members more harshly because their behavior reflects poorly on the in-group, and fellow in-group members will want to distance themselves from the in-group member who has committed a crime (Marques, Yzerbyt, & Leyens, 1988). The black sheep hypothesis has been tested in mock juror research, with mock jurors rendering harsher verdicts for in-group members when the evidence against them is strong as opposed to weak (Kerr et al., 1995). Furthermore, the need or desire to protect the in-group and punish the out-group may vary among different racial and ethnic groups. Some researchers maintain that similarity-leniency may actually provide a stronger impetus for minority jurors who could potentially be using jury verdicts as a method of protesting institutional discrimination (Hunt, 2015). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 857

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the social-identity and in-group bias literature generally; the ‘black sheep’ effect complicates the usual similarity-leniency finding, parallel to discussions of bias direction in other legal-bias readings. — connects to: Status groups punish fraudulent pretenders more harshly than ordinary members. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 233
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the claim that minority jurors use verdicts as protest against institutional discrimination — is there data beyond Hunt 2015, and does it hold in real jury contexts vs mock trials?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 857