The present study aimed to investigate prospective juror's perceptions of the dynamicsudof social interaction in a courtroom where the defendant is said to have a psychiatricuddiagnosis. The experiment adopted Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) toudexamine the effect of lawyer and defendant's converging and diverging speech rates onudthe jurors' perception of the defendant's credibility, likeability, cooperativeness, intentudand guilt. One-hundred and eighty-six participants were allocated to one of 18udconditions, in which they listened to a reenactment of part of an edited court case andudthen filled in questionnaires. It was hypothesised that rapid speed of speech would actudas a credibility cue, resulting in an increase in ratings of defendant credibility. It wasudfurther expected that ratings of cooperativeness and likeability would increase when theudlawyer and defendant's speech rates converged and that ratings of cooperativeness andudlikeability would vary across convergence and divergence depending on whether theuddefendant's change in speech rate was perceived as being internally or externallyudmotivated (intent). In regards to the effect of the defendant's mental health label, it wasudhypothesised that where the defendant was said to have a psychiatric diagnosis this labeludwould override the effect of the speech rate manipulations. Little support was found forudthe hypotheses outlined in this study. Possible reasons for this lack of support, as welludas suggestions for further research are outlined in the discussion.
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