1989-03-24 Comments of Star Tribune.pdf - Minnesota Judicial Branch

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It is possible that when measured in an attitude survey,
apprehension, concern or negativity is a global and
general perception, one which is not necessarily borne
out by actual, specific experience. In courtrooms the
evaluators observed little apprehension, little disruption
and, in general, found little evidence for anyone to
have a Very negative set of attitudes about EMC--on an
event-specific basis. A judge might feel or believe
that witnesses will be apprehensive while the actual
event over which he presided did not verify his prior
held attitude.
It is also possible that defenders, for instance, whose
anti-EMC position remained unchanged throughout the
experimental year, may actually have had relatively posi-
tive experiences at EMC proceedings, but reported them
to be negative because they hold a negative set of atti-
tudes about EMC in general. As such, their general
attitude overrides the specific event experience.
Finally, it is possible that respondents retain longheld
fears about general EMC effects, despite the lack
of negative experiences in specific events. The time
span during which EMC has been tried experimentally in
California is short. Knowledge and information about
its effects are not widely known. Individual respondents
may even doubt the validity of their Own experience
(especially if it was a single, brief event) and yield
to-+e longer-held, easily tapped general attitude.
Jurors showed a different picture. Though a reservoir
. of 10 to 30 percent af all jurors are skeptical of E?lC