"Reducing the hindsight bias utilizing attorney closing arguments": Errata

Reports an error in "Reducing the hindsight bias utilizing attorney closing arguments" by Merrie Jo Stallard and Debra L. Worthington ( Law and Human Behavior, 1998[Dec], Vol 22[6], 671-683). The third dependant variable in Table 3 is incorrect. The correction is in the errata. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1998-03228-004.) In the legal system, jurors are asked to render a decision after the event in question has already occurred and the final outcome, typically negative, is known. This "after-the-fact" structure of the legal system makes jurors susceptible to a human judgment phenomenon known as hindsight bias. This study focused on reducing hindsight bias in a courtroom context by incorporating a debiasing strategy within the defense's closing argument. 147 college students (aged 18–41 yrs) viewed one of three videotaped versions of plaintiff and defense closing arguments in a commercial litigation case (i.e., foresight condition, hindsight condition, and hindsight debiasing condition). Results indicate that the hindsight debiasing strategy was effective in reducing subject-juror hindsight bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)