Megan L Lawrence

Biographic Data

ID9561887
NAMEMegan L Lawrence
GIVEN NAMESMegan L
FAMILY NAMELawrence
SIGNATURELAWRENCE M L
AFFILIATIONSArizona State University
ORCID0000-0002-2323-7719
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS9
TOTAL CITATIONS1
WORKS AS AUTHOR9
WORKS AS EDITOR0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2020
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX1

  • Modernizing Jury Selection

    Open AccessJessica M Salerno, Megan L Lawrence et al.ARTICLESocial Issues and Policy Review2026

    The jury selection procedure was designed to identify jurors who might be biased and to exclude them from juries. Traditional jury selection procedures rest on two assumptions: that people are aware of and willing to (a) admit and (b) control their biases when directly asked to do so in court. We review psychological science demonstrating that these assumptions are flawed and offer scientifically guided policy recommendations to help the courts s…

  • From caller to suspect

    Open AccessSamantha Bean, Alia N Wulff et al.ARTICLELaw and Human Behavior2026

    OBJECTIVE: falls under suspicion. Across four studies, we investigated what perceived behaviors exhibited by 911 callers (urgency, emotionality, cognitive load, impression management, and information management) are related to laypeople's (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and police officers' (Study 3) suspicion toward the caller. HYPOTHESES: We predicted, for lay and police samples, callers perceived as more urgent or emotional would be perceived as less su…

  • Not all AI-generated faces are created equal

    Open AccessMegan Lawrence, Megan L Lawrence et al.ARTICLEAI & Society2026

  • The effects of implicit bias interventions on mock jurors’ civil trial decisions and perceptions of the courts

    Megan L Lawrence, Kristen L Gittings et al.ARTICLELaw and Human Behavior2025

    OBJECTIVE: In an attempt to reduce juror bias, courts across the United States are educating jurors about how implicit bias impacts decision making. We tested whether novel implicit bias interventions-in the form of educational videos or judicial instructions-reduce the relationship between mock jurors' explicit racial biases and their case decisions for Black plaintiffs and/or increase mock jurors' trust in the courts to deliver fair outcomes. H…

  • The Miranda penalty

    Megan L Lawrence, Emma R Saiter et al.ARTICLELaw and Human Behavior2024

    OBJECTIVE: penalty exists. HYPOTHESES: rights. METHOD: rights, sat in silence, or spoke to police. Participants evaluated each suspect along various characteristics (e.g., honest, suspicious), assessed his likely guilt, and reported how many hours they would allocate to investigating the suspect versus other potential suspects. RESULTS: Suspects who invoked their right to silence or remained silent, compared with those who waived their rights and…

  • Regional gender bias and year predict gender representation on civil trial teams

    Open AccessHannah J Phalen, Megan L Lawrence et al.ARTICLELaw and Human Behavior2024

    OBJECTIVE: There are documented gender disparities in the legal field. We examined whether gender representation on civil trial teams varied on the basis of (a) the degree of regional gender bias "in the air" and (b) time. HYPOTHESES: We hypothesized that women were underrepresented both on trial teams and in leadership roles within those teams. We predicted that these gender disparities were exacerbated in regions with stronger regional gender b…

  • The role of social desirability and establishing nonracist credentials on mock juror decisions about Black defendants

    Open AccessJessica M Salerno, Kylie Kulak et al.ARTICLELaw and Human Behavior2023

    OBJECTIVE: Recently, experimental work on racial bias in legal settings has diverged from real-world field data demonstrating racial disparities, instead often producing null or potential overcorrection effects favoring Black individuals over White individuals. We explored the role of social desirability in these counterintuitive effects and tested whether allowing participants to establish nonracist moral credentials increased their willingness …

  • Counterintuitive race effects in legal and nonlegal contexts

    Open AccessLaura Smalarz, Rose E Eerdmans et al.ARTICLELaw and Human Behavior2023

    OBJECTIVE: Despite documented racial disparities in all facets of the criminal justice system, recent laboratory attempts to investigate racial bias in legal settings have produced null effects or racial-bias reversals. These counterintuitive findings may be an artifact of laboratory participants' attempts to appear unprejudiced in response to social norms that proscribe expressions of racial bias against Black individuals. Furthermore, given per…

  • False admissions of guilt associated with wrongful convictions undermine people’s perceptions of exonerees

    Kyle C Scherr, Christopher J Normile et al.ARTICLEPsychology Public Policy and Law2020Cited by: 1