Beyond a reasonable 'don't'.I was preparing a client for a deposition as usual. "Now, when you answer the other lawyer's question, don't look at me "Don't Look at Me" is the 42nd episode of the ABC television series, Desperate Housewives. It was the 19th episode of the show's second season. The episode was written by Josh Senter and directed by David Grossman. It originally aired on Sunday, April 16, 2006. ," I told him. He nodded, but I feared my admonition Any formal verbal statement made during a trial by a judge to advise and caution the jury on their duty as jurors, on the admissibility or nonadmissibility of evidence, or on the purpose for which any evidence admitted may be considered by them. wasn't sinking in. "It's a conversation between you and the lawyer asking you questions," I said. "Don't look at me, OK?" After each question at the deposition, he paused, turned his head away from the lawyer, and looked right at me. He distinctly gave off the impression that he had been coached--exactly what I had sought to avoid. But it was my fault. I shouldn't have said "don't." Research shows that asking a person not to do something actually has the opposite effect. The theory of "ironic processes of mental control"--developed by Daniel Wegner, a psychology professor at Harvard University Harvard University, mainly at Cambridge, Mass., including Harvard College, the oldest American college. Harvard College Harvard College, originally for men, was founded in 1636 with a grant from the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. , and others--explains why. Wegner's original experiments, described in his book The Illusion of Conscious Will, delve into the issue of thought suppression Thought suppression is the process of deliberately trying to stop thinking about certain thoughts (Wegner, 1989). This is subtly different from Freud’s (1955) concept of repression, which is unconscious and automatic and has relatively little empirical support (see Eysenck, . As part of the experiments, subjects were isolated in a room with a microphone and a bell and asked to speak for five minutes about anything that came to mind. Researchers then told each person to continue, but not to think of a white bear. What happened? The subjects thought of the white bear repeatedly, ringing the bell each time they did. When the researchers told subjects to go ahead and think of a white bear, those who had originally tried to suppress To stop something or someone; to prevent, prohibit, or subdue. To suppress evidence is to keep it from being admitted at trial by showing either that it was illegally obtained or that it is irrelevant. that thought tended to think it more often than those who had not. "The irony," Wegner wrote, "is not only that people found it hard to suppress a thought in the first place, but that the attempt to do this made them especially inclined to become absorbed with the though t later on." According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Wegner, "the mind appears to search, unconsciously and automatically, for whatever thought, action, or emotion the person is trying to control." To avoid this effect, accentuate ac·cen·tu·ate tr.v. ac·cen·tu·at·ed, ac·cen·tu·at·ing, ac·cen·tu·ates 1. To stress or emphasize; intensify: the positive. When preparing witnesses for a deposition or a trial, for example, tell them to do something, and make sure it's incompatible with doing what you don't want them to do. Instead of saying, "Don't look at me," say, "Look directly at the other lawyer when answering." This should increase the chance that your witnesses will do just that. Cassandra Kinkead Brian Kennan Seattle |
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