| Research shows that a plaintiff's use of a dollar amount during closing argument can cause a jury to experience a distinct cognitive phenomenon called anchoring. The robust effect of anchoring has repeatedly demonstrated that the more plaintiffs request in damages, the higher the amount of compensatory damages awarded by subjects. Interestingly, researchers and practitioners alike have suggested, "there is no effective counter-anchor for defense counsel to offset the effect of the plaintiff's anchor." For the civil defense attorney, any monetary amount assigned to damages functions as a counter-anchor to the amount given by the plaintiff. The purpose of this investigation was to explore the effects of counteranchoring plaintiffs' compensatory damage requests during closing argument on juror decision-making, liability judgments and damage awards.; For this study, the selective accessibility model was used as an overall theoretical reference. It was hypothesized that if the accessibility of anchorinconsistent knowledge (or an alternative award amount pro-offered by the defense) is increased, this knowledge (or alternative award amount) should be equally used to make the final estimate and reduce the effects of the easily accessible anchor offered by the plaintiff. Hence, counter-anchoring damages or providing anchor-inconsistent information may prove to substantially reduce the biasing effects of an uncontested damages anchor.; After reading a case scenario and a plaintiff's closing argument, subjects were exposed to a defense closing argument that included either a zero, moderate, or high counter-anchor. The results of the present study indicate that both liability and award determinations were unaffected by the defense attorney's award recommendation, or counter-anchor. Although liability determinations were presumed to be unaffected and indeed were, it was predicted that award size would be influenced. Specifically, the linear increase in compensatory awards that was hypothesized across the study's three damage award conditions failed to emerge. Finally, it was hypothesized that the nonexistent damages counter-anchor (control) condition would produce the highest compensatory awards. No significant differences between the conditions were found. Explanations, study limitations, theoretical and practical implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed. |
