Modulation of the leniency bias in the Discursive Dilemma

LINARES, S.; FREIDIN, E.; BODANZA, G.; DEL BIANCO, F.; LINARES, S.; FREIDIN, E.; BODANZA, G.; DEL BIANCO, F.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY

IUPSYS

Año: 2020 p. 67 - 75

0020-7594

We experimentallyapproach the discursive dilemma in order to gain insight into people?sprocedural appropriateness judgments. We relied on a vignette in which three persons had formed opinions about two set of skills (premises) of a candidate to decide whether to hire her/him (conclusion). The dilemma arises whendifferent outcomes (hire vs. not hire) are achieved depending on whether themajority opinion is independently considered for each premise or for the global conclusion. Participants were asked to choose the procedure they thought to be more appropriate to reach a decision. In Experiment 1, we found a leniency effect (a bias to prefer the aggregation procedure that led to hiring the candidate, which was reduced by introducing the participant asa juror with an exogenously provided negative opinion about the candidate´s skills. In Experiment 2, we replicated the opinion effect, even when subjectsdid not participate as jury members. In Experiment 3, we found that the leniency bias was only reduced when participants´ negative opinion was aligned with a majority of negative premises, but not with a majority of negative conclusions. We discuss present findings in terms of the identification of empirical regularities that may affect people´s procedural legitimacy judgments.