It would not be quite correct, if we were to draw from that the conclusion that the women did not change their minds at all. If we examine the number of cases in which in the course of the first, second, and third votes some change occurred, we find changes in forty per cent. of all judgments of the men and nineteen per cent. of all judgments of the women. This does not mean that a change in a particular case necessarily made the last vote different from the first; we not seldom had a case where for instance the first vote was larger, the second equal, and the third again larger. And, as a matter of course, where a change between the first and the last occurred, it was not always a change in the right direction. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the votes always covered three possibilities, and not only two. It was therefore possible for the first vote to be wrong, and then for a change to occur to another wrong vote. The nineteen per cent. changes in the decisions of the women accordingly contained as many cases in which right was turned into wrong as in which wrong was turned into right, while with the men the changes to the right had an overweight of twenty-six per cent. The self-analysis of the women indicated clearly the reason for their mental stubbornness. They heard the arguments, but they were so fully under the autosuggestion of their first decision that they fancied that they had known all that before and that they had discounted the arguments of their opponents in the first vote. The cobbler has to stick to his last: the psychologist has to be satisfied with analyzing the mental processes, but it is not his concern to mingle in politics. He must leave it to others to decide whether it will really be a gain if the jury-box is filled with persons whose minds are unable to profit from discussion and who return to their first idea, however much is argued from the other side. It is evident that this tendency of the female mind must be advantageous for many social purposes. The woman remains loyal to her instinctive opinion. Hence we have no right to say that one type of mind is better than another. We may say only they differ, and that this difference makes men fit and women unfit for the task which society requires from jurymen.

In order to make quite sure that the discussion, and not the seeing of the vote, is responsible for the marked improvement in the case of men, I carried on some further experiments in which the voting alone was involved. To bring this mental process to strongest expression, I went far beyond the small circle which was needed for the informal exchange of opinion, and operated, instead, with my large class of psychological students in Harvard. I have there four hundred and sixty students, and accordingly had to use much larger cards with large dots. I showed to them any two cards twice. There was an interval of twenty seconds between the first and the second exposure, and each time they looked at the cards for three seconds. In one half of the experiments that interval was not filled at all, in the other half a quick show of hands was arranged, so that every one could see how many on the first impression judged the upper card as having more or an equal number or fewer dots than the lower. After the second exposure every one had to write down his final result. The pairs of cards which were exposed when the show of hands was made were the same as those which were shown without any one knowing how the other men judged. We calculated the results on the basis of four hundred reports. They showed that the total number of right judgments in the cases without showing hands was sixty per cent. correct, in those with show of hands about sixty-five per cent. A hundred and twenty men had turned from the right to the wrong; that is, had more incorrect judgments when they saw how the other men voted than when they were left to themselves. It is true that those who turned from worse to better by seeing the vote of the others were in a slight majority, bringing the total vote five per cent. upward; but this difference is so small that it could just as well be explained by the mere fact that this act of public voting reinforced the attention and improved a little the total vote through this stimulation of the social consciousness. It is not surprising that the mere seeing of the votes in such cases has so small an effect, incomparable with that of a real discussion in which new vistas are opened, inasmuch as in forty per cent. of the cases the majority was evidently on the wrong side from the start. Those who are swept away by the majority would, therefore, in forty per cent. of the cases be carried to the wrong side. I went still further, and examined by psychological methods the degree of suggestibility of those four hundred participants in the experiment, and the results showed that the fifty most suggestible men profited from the seeing of the vote of the majority no more than the fifty least suggestible ones. In both cases there was an increase of about five per cent. correct judgments. I also drew from this the conclusion that the show of hands was ineffective as a direct influence toward correctness, and that it had only the slight indirect value of forcing the men to concentrate their attention better on those cards. All results, therefore, point in the same direction: it is really the argument which brings a coöperating group nearer to the truth, and not the seeing how the other men vote. Hence the psychologist has every reason to be satisfied with the jury system.

Color-Tone, engraved for THE CENTURY by H. Davidson

THE LAST FAUN

“‘Since I slept, the boughs have pressed so near
The narrow path is lost. But I must run
And chase my fellows out into the sun.’”

DRAWN BY CHARLES A. WINTER

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