The Impact of Gender-Role Congruence on the Persuasiveness of Expert Testimony

The Impact of Gender-Role Congruence on the Persuasiveness of Expert Testimony

Previous research has examined the impact of the match between expert witness gender and the gender-orientation of the case, suggesting that traditional gender-role stereotyping was influencing mock jurors’ decisions. Manipulations of the orientation of the domain of the case focus on the knowledge area of the case itself, rather than the actual knowledge of the expert. This reveals little about the impact of the association between the role of the expert and the expert’s gender. The present study investigated whether perceivers make use of gender stereotypes as a shortcut for decisions when presented with the testimony of an expert witness. It was predicted that participants would award a higher amount of damages to the plaintiff when the plaintiff’s expert’s gender matched their role compared to when it did not match. It was also predicted that participants’ evaluation of the plaintiff’s expert witness’s testimony and the expert would be more positive in the gender-role congruent condition. As expected, the female expert’s testimony was viewed more positively when occupying a female-oriented role compared to a male-oriented role, and that the expertise of the female expert was evaluated more favourably in the female-oriented role compared to the male-oriented role. Despite the impact of gender stereotypes in biasing the evaluation of expert testimony on several dimensions, this had no apparent impact on award decisions.

McKimmie, Blake

Schuller, Regina

Thomas, Simon

Sherrel, Helen

The University of Queensland Law Journal; Vol. 38 No. 2 (2019): Special issue on expert evidence; 279-299

1839-289X

0083-4041

10.38127/uqlj.v38i2

The University of Queensland School of Law

2020-02-18

Copyright (c) 2020 The University of Queensland Law Journal

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Peer-reviewed Article