Researchers have not yet addressed whether the loneliness attributes of a juror affects his or her functioning as a jury member. Investigations of the social functioning of lonely individuals predicts that loneliness may bear on the jury deliberation process. Hansson and Jones (1981) found that in group interactions lonely individuals were less confident in their opinions then non-lonely individuals. They were also less willing to share these opinions publically. As well, lonely participants were seen as more likely to respond in an extreme manner towards influence attempts then their nonlonely counterparts. When considering important judgements regarding a persons welfare lonely males were shown to be less likely to follow social consensus. The opposite patterned emerged with lonely females, who were more likely to shift towards the opinion of the consensus. A second relevant social functioning study states that when compared to nonlonely participants, lonely individuals were less effective at encoding information. In this case, chronically lonely participants were shown to be less accurate at encoding nonverbal communication, a deficit that may affect the type and quality of information a lonely juror brings to the deliberations (Gerson & Perlman, 1979). Together these studies lead to questions regarding the legal effectiveness of jurors who are chronically lonely. The data suggests that in a trial situation a lonely juror may be inept in both the encoding of information during the trial and their subsequent behavior during jury deliberation. As was previously stated, the purpose of this study is to examine whether juror loneliness characteristics affects how one functions as a jury member, and subsequently whether this can affect the decision making processes of the jury. A replication of the moral reasoning portion of Rotenberg, Hewlett, and Siegwart's (1998) mock-jury investigation will be attempted. Consistent with previous research on the social functioning of lonely individuals it is expected that lonely participants will be inactive jurors, in that they will not disclose there opinions as readily as non-lonely jury members. It is also expected that this behavioral deficit will be noticed by other jury members, whom will rate the lonely jury members less favorably in regards to their contributions to the deliberation. Along with the loneliness manipulations, principle moral reasoning levels are also to be investigated. As is consistent with virtually all previous research on legal moral reasoning, high principle moral reasoners are expected to dominate the jury deliberations. An interaction between moral reasoning levels and loneliness on deliberations could very well be present, and will thereby be investigated. One question that may be answered is whether or not lonely individuals can even achieve or express high principle moral reasoning. If not, their effectiveness as jury members should be seriously placed into question.
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