Abstract
Gender and juror judgment making in a case of rape. This study assesses the role of gender and juror performance in a case of rape. The results reveal that women tend to reach significantly more guilty verdicts. Moreover, the dimension of reliability, the underlying mechanism of judgement making, exhibited significant differences between men and women in the reliability attributed to the evidence. Validity, however, was only mediated by gender in one item of evidence i.e., the importance attributed to the role of the prosecution. The evaluation of cognitive activity in the reconstruction of events showed that women "process the information in greater depth" and their judgements are based on a "criteria of information integration". Finally, the implications of these findings are discussed, particularly, in relation to legal practioners.
