Over the years, many people have asked me what makes me qualified to work as a jury/trial consultant. I explain that I have a Ph.D. in social psychology, which is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by other people and situations. Social thinking, social influence, and social behavior are studied by my colleagues and me, with the goal of understanding the ways in which individual and group behavior is influenced by others’ presence and behavior. In consideration of the fact that a jury is comprised of individual jurors, who must work together to

I have written about the phenomenon of people who have no education, training, or expertise in psychology who think they know as much about human behavior as I, a psychologist, know. I am frequently asked for my opinion about someone or something, only to be told, “Well, I don’t have a degree in psychology, but I do know about my Uncle Bubba’s situation and it is different than what ‘them there’ books say.” When this happens, I usually shake my head, muster a fake smile, and wish the person well, knowing he/she will never be able to understand what

As a follow up to my previous post pertaining to things I love about my job, among my favorite work tasks is writing a survey. (Another of my favorite tasks is analyzing survey results, but I have written about that in a prior post.) Not only is writing a survey intellectually stimulating, the mere fact I have a survey to write means we have important work to do for a client. Hooray for client work! The activities involved in my survey preparation are: (1) read copious amounts of legal documents, provided by the client, about the case on which we

I love my job! I truly do! My dear friend, Bob, has called me a workaholic since we met in 1980. I am a person who really likes to work! Being bored is not for me. I decided to think about the top 10 things I like about my job as a jury/trial consultant, which I have been performing since 1989. Here they are, in no particular order: 1. I like to help people. When Magnus’ clients contact us, they always have a problem they cannot solve without our help. It is rewarding to me to be trusted to

Magnus Research Consultants recently worked in Miami, where we have worked numerous times throughout the decades we have been in business. Most of the time when we are conducting mock jury research, the research participants/mock jurors are respectful toward one another, the Magnus staff, and me. Once in a while, however, one or more of them will overstep the line of decency, which is a guarantee they will be sent home, immediately. On this day in Miami, one of the mock jurors, who had volunteered to be the jury foreperson, refused to follow the instructions he was given by

Hooray! Hooray! I had the privilege of selecting 2 juries, for 2 different clients, in 2 different courthouses, recently. Usually, this would be nothing to write about, however, these jury selections were noteworthy due to the fact that they were the first, and second, jury selections for me since the world shut down in March of 2020 because of the pandemic. I was thrilled, absolutely thrilled, to be back in a courthouse, wearing a dark suit and high heels, carrying a briefcase, and providing help to my clients as they faced challenging lawsuits. Things almost seemed like they were

I’m writing this on a Monday, so I’m going to vent a little. This is a topic I’ve had on my list to write about for quite some time; I just never got to it, in part, because I don’t like to venture into areas of self importance. But, here I go. As trial consultants, we at Magnus believe that, when we are retained, we become professional members of the trial team, offering our perspectives and expertise which come from a different place than the perspectives of the lawyers who are litigating the case. For example, Melissa has more education

Social psychology is amazing (at least, in my opinion!) in its ability to explain things that would otherwise be hard to understand. Take the topic of effort justification as one example. Cognitive dissonance theory postulates that people do not like to have two attitudes or beliefs that conflict with one another. Cognitive dissonance leads to an internal tension. For example, if I pay a lot of money to see Paul McCartney in concert, then upon attending the concert, found out he could no longer sing, I would have cognitive dissonance. (Note to the reader: This would be impossible! Paul

Social psychologists, as well as other types of psychologists, have studied achievement motivation for many decades. In goal directed situations, there are several ways in which someone can achieve the desired outcome: ability, effort, and luck. Success and failure also depend, of course, on the difficulty of the task being undertaken. When considered together, these 4 elements of achievement behavior provide a foundation for understanding how people succeed or fail in a variety of situations, from the world or work to learning how to play a musical instrument or how to pitch a fastball. In the years David and

My family is a baseball family. My dad, the late Park T. Pigott, Sr. played baseball, coached baseball, and generally speaking, lived much of his life for baseball. I am not usually fond of sports analogies, however, recent experiences with clients of Magnus Research Consultants have reminded me of baseball. Almost all of Magnus’ clients “play in the major league,” in that they are trial lawyers and litigators who are at the pinnacle of their legal career, with cases of a substantial magnitude that warrant retaining a trial consultant. Our most recent client, as one example, is a criminal