Date of Award

August 2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Andre Kehn

Abstract

Legal professionals and researchers have debated the admission of photographic evidence in court due to the potential for emotional prejudice to impact juror decision-making. Prior work has examined affective responses to graphic photographs, including anger, sadness, and disgust. However, disgust related to juror judgments has been primarily examined as a single construct, despite research in the affective literature suggesting that multiple types of disgust exist. Thus, in the current study, I sought to address this gap by using a mixed-design approach to examine the influence of two different disgust types, physical and moral disgust, on mock jurors’ emotions and decisions across the duration of a trial. In a mock trial, participants were exposed to one of three different types of photographic evidence (i.e., neutral, physically disgusting, or morally disgusting) in a burglary case. Additionally, mock juror emotions were measured at five different time points throughout the trial. Participants deliberated and provided case judgments. The results revealed specific emotional trajectories of anger and disgust as a response to the morally and physically disgusting photographs. Further, both disgusting photographs predicted increased punitiveness at the pre- and post-deliberation levels compared to the neutral photograph. Partial support for a mediating relationship between the moral photograph and verdict judgments was identified, such that the moral photograph increased anger and disgust, yet only disgust predicted harsher guilt outcomes. Physically disgusting photos had a direct influence on verdict, which was not mediated by emotion. Deliberation, however, was found to lessen punitiveness when comparing individual judgments pre- and post-deliberation, although exposure to the moral photograph produced greater resistance to this effect. The implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

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