The most important purpose of voir dire is to learn about the prospective jurors.  The information you gather forms the basis of challenges for cause and allows for the intelligent execution of peremptory challenges. 

Ideally, voir dire elicits in-depth information that accurately displays the prospective jurors’ true meanings and intentions.  To a certain extent, some jurors may be unaware of their biases and prejudices – and clearly, an important goal of voir dire is to uncover those unconscious attitudes and beliefs.  However, another significant challenge of voir dire occurs when jurors actually are aware of their biases and prejudices yet do not express them.  With careful planning, this challenge may be overcome. 

“Self-disclosure” is the term used when a person verbally communicates information about him/herself to another person.  Self-disclosure can be thought of in terms of the (a) breadth or amount of information disclosed, (b) depth or intimacy of information disclosed, and (c) duration or time spent describing information.  Naturally, most people are reluctant to disclose too much information about themselves – often because they fear their beliefs and attitudes will be ridiculed or misunderstood, especially by strangers. 

Research shows that large numbers of jurors fail to speak up during jury selection when they should.  In several trials, 30% of the prospective jurors failed to admit that they had been victims of a crime or had acquaintances who were law officers.1  In certain cases, well over 50% of the prospective jurors during jury selection failed to admit that they had a fixed opinion about the guilt of the defendant.2  

Prospective jurors’ limited self-disclosure during voir dire is often due to a psychological process called “self-presentation” – or behavior meant to manipulate others’ attributions or impressions of one’s self.  Either consciously or unconsciously, people attempt to regulate and control information they present to others, particularly information about themselves.  By publicly expressing certain attributes and behaviors, people can control the impressions others have of them. 

Self-presentation occurs primarily when the setting directs attention to the type of impression one makes on an “audience.”  Three settings in which self-presentation is likely to occur are: 1) important, evaluative settings in which people try to present a grandiose view of themselves, such as a job interview; 2) formal settings that prompt well-established social roles, such as a wedding; and 3) settings in which the actor feels like the center of attention, such as a public speaking event.  

In most courtrooms, voir dire represents all three “settings”: 

• It is an important, evaluative setting in which people are being interviewed for the “job” of juror;
  
• It takes place in a very formal setting, with clearly defined social roles for the judge, attorneys and the jurors; and
  
• During voir dire, prospective jurors are at the center of the Court’s attention, with the judge and attorneys’ focus directed at their answers.

When jurors engage in self-presentation, they are more concerned with how they appear to others than with the accuracy of their responses.  As a result, when they are worried about how they will be perceived in such an evaluative, formal and “center stage” type of setting, they may remain quiet.

Interviewer Influences
Jurors often sense what responses the attorneys and judges want them to give by “demand characteristics” from the Court.  Demand characteristics are cues that communicate to the subject what is expected and what the experimenter hopes to find.  Even if they did not perceive the need to be fair and impartial before entering the courtroom, prospective jurors are certainly cued by the judges and attorneys that “good” jurors are required to be fair and impartial, and therefore, are hesitant to answer in a way that would imply that they are not. 

Demand characteristics can lead to “evaluation apprehension”– participants know that they are being evaluated, and therefore, they think about how to behave in order to avoid negative evaluation.  In the courtroom, for example, prospective jurors recognize that when they are questioned they are the focus of attention and all eyes of the audience (including the judge, attorneys, the parties, the courtroom personnel, the public attendees) are on them.  Unless the voir dire is conducted in an individually sequestered format, even other potential jurors will hear their responses.  As a result, prospective jurors may try to please the Court by giving the responses they think the attorneys and judge want to hear.     

“Expectancy effects” occur when people perceive nonverbal and behavioral cues from others in higher positions of power and adjust their behavior to conform to those perceived expectations.  A classic example of expectancy effects has been shown with the topic of “death qualification” – or the process of seating a jury in a capital case.  Studies show that surrogate jurors who observe death-qualification voir dire are more likely to believe in the guilt of the defendant, and they are not only more likely to vote for the death penalty compared to surrogate jurors who had not viewed death-qualification voir dire, but they also believe that the judge and both attorneys favor the death penalty.  They were also more likely to believe that the law disapproved of those who oppose the death penalty, and they chose the death penalty as an appropriate punishment more often than the participants who did not view death- qualification voir dire.3 

Potential jurors, like the general public, fear that somehow their answers will be judged inappropriately, and therefore, they are reluctant to reveal their own biases publicly.  It is not uncommon to see jurors look to the judge or attorney for approval after answering a question.  Prospective jurors want to present themselves as fair and impartial jurors free from prejudice and bias because that is what the situation, as it is defined, demands of them. 

Prospective jurors who are apprehensive about being evaluated often want others to perceive them to be fair and impartial – even if it means being dishonest!  In fact, research shows that ex- jurors who report that they felt nervous, anxious, and self-conscious while being asked questions during voir dire were least likely to give honest answers.

Audience Effects
Audience reaction may also affect prospective jurors’ self-disclosure.  They see the way other jurors are scrutinized.  They learn which answers will demand follow-up questioning and which answers seem to “please” the Court and cease questioning.  While a few prospective jurors who want to get out of jury service will give answers they have seen will result in being excused, the majority will purposely avoid answers that would likely result in further questioning, thereby avoiding being excused.  Eventually, some perceptions about what the Court would like to hear may become so prevalent among prospective jurors, that there can be a considerable effect on behavior patterns, resulting in conformity of responses.  

A common question asked in voir dire is:  “Is there anyone here who cannot be a fair and impartial juror in this case?”  Such a question is not likely to elicit self-disclosure because people fear the negative appraisals of being “unfair.”  Prospective jurors will be especially hesitant to voice their opinion if no other prospective jurors identify themselves as being unfair.  After all, who would be willing to acknowledge publicly that they are an unjust person?  When prospective jurors are asked, “If you could have spoken to the judge one-on-one, are there some things you would have wanted to tell him/her during this questioning about yourself?” many reply affirmatively.4

Setting
Physical characteristics of the courtroom may also inhibit self-disclosure.  The typically large room and the cold, hard atmosphere of the courtroom may inhibit self-disclosure by appearing impersonal (coupled with the fact that the attorneys, judge and fellow prospective jurors are usually strangers).   

The judge sits at a raised bench above the courtroom, dressed in a black robe, portraying absolute authority.  Attorneys sit at tables “center stage” facing the judge and jury, denoting the next highest status.  The jurors sit “offstage” to the side of the courtroom suggesting their lower status.  The position of the judge as elevated and in charge, followed next by the attorneys, creates a hierarchy in the courtroom.  The result of this gap in social distance between the interviewer and prospective jurors is pressure to answer in conformity with the opinions or expectations of the attorneys and judge.                

Suggestions for Increasing Self-disclosure
The following suggestions will encourage prospective jurors to respond more fully and accurately during the voir dire process:

1. Instruct jurors to self-disclose.  The easiest way to make jurors feel comfortable in openly revealing personal information about themselves is to instruct and encourage them to do so.  Before posing questions to the panel, inform jurors that voir dire is important and that the goal is to gather information from them.  Make it clear that it is their duty as jurors to speak up.  Most importantly, express to jurors that revealing information that results in their being excused from jury selection does not make them an unqualified juror who cannot fulfill his/her civic duty, but simply a less than ideal match for that specific trial.      
   
2. Ask questions where a majority of prospective jurors will raise their hands. 
   Getting many prospective jurors to raise their hands early on helps them become accustomed to doing so.  Getting jurors over their initial fears of raising their hands will be helpful the further questioning goes on.  Then, if appropriate, prospective jurors who do not raise their hands voluntarily should be called upon.  This provides another chance for expression by those jurors who are reluctant to raise their hands.
   
3. Make self-disclosing statements to the prospective jurors.  In voir dire, attorneys rarely engage in self-disclosure to the prospective jurors.  But attorney self-disclosure not only makes jurors more likely to self-disclose, but also more likely to disclose honestly.  For example, an attorney might tell the prospective jurors that he/she is always nervous at the beginning of a trial and so he/she assumes that they are as well. 
   
4. Self-disclosing statements by jurors should be followed by positive reinforcement.  Positive reinforcement facilitates increased self-disclosure.  Nonverbal behavior is one form of positive reinforcement that can be used to increase disclosure.  For example, increased eye contact, relaxed posture and a direct orientation of the questioner’s body toward the prospective jurors elicit more responses.  Also, head nodding and saying “Hm-hmm” are effective in stimulating longer speech by showing interest in what the prospective juror is saying. 
   

Conclusion
There are, of course, other reasons prospective jurors don’t disclose information, such as asking the wrong questions, asking confusing questions or not giving jurors time to reflect before responding.  However, as indicated above, even when asking good questions, there can be obstacles that discourage jurors from expressing their opinions fully.    Keeping these obstacles in mind and following the suggestions for increasing self-disclosure can result in the accumulation of more information from prospective jurors during voir dire.