Funnel plot for "Racial Bias in Mock Juror Decision-Making"
This post reports on publication bias analyses for the Tara L. Mitchell et al. 2005 meta-analysis: "Racial Bias in Mock Juror Decision-Making: A Meta-Analytic Review of Defendant Treatment" [gated, ungated]. The appendices for the article contained a list of sample sizes and effect sizes, but the list did not match the reported results in at least one case. Dr. Mitchell emailed me a file of the correct data (here).
VERDICTS
Here is the funnel plot for the Mitchell et al. 2005 meta-analysis of verdicts:
Egger's test did not indicate at the conventional level of statistical significance the presence of funnel plot asymmetry in any of the four funnel plots, with p-values of p=0.80 (white participants, published studies), p=0.82 (white participants, all studies), p=0.10 (black participants, published studies), and p=0.63 (black participants, all studies).
Trim-and-fill with the L0 estimator imputed missing studies for all four funnel plots to the side of the funnel plot indicating same-race favoritism:
Trim-and-fill with the R0 estimator imputed missing studies for only the funnel plots for published studies with black participants:
SENTENCES
Here is the funnel plot for the Mitchell et al. 2005 meta-analysis of sentences:
Egger's test did not indicate at the conventional level of statistical significance the presence of funnel plot asymmetry in any of the four funnel plots, with p-values of p=0.14 (white participants, published studies), p=0.41 (white participants, all studies), p=0.50 (black participants, published studies), and p=0.53 (black participants, all studies).
Trim-and-fill with the L0 estimator imputed missing studies for the funnel plots with white participants to the side of the funnel plot indicating same-race favoritism:
Trim-and-fill with the R0 estimator did not impute any missing studies:
I also attempted to retrieve and plot data for the Ojmarrh Mitchell 2005 meta-analysis ("A Meta-Analysis of Race and Sentencing Research: Explaining the Inconsistencies"), but the data were reportedly lost in a computer crash.
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NOTES:
1. Data and code for the Mitchell et al. 2005 analyses are here: data file for verdicts, data file for sentences, R code for verdicts, and R code for sentences.
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