crime : psychology and the courtroom (cognitive)

Question 1

How is a jury made up?

Answer 1

• 12 ordinary civilians
• 18 - 70 yrs
• defendant and prosecutor make cases and jury decide if guilty or innocent

Question 2

what factors can affect the jury verdict?

Answer 2

• age
• gender
• race
• how they dress
• attractiveness
• confidence
• tattoos
• perceived status and social class
• accents

Question 3

give two background studies for psychology and the courtroom

Answer 3

• penrod and cutler: witness confidence
  
  • female witness stated whether she was 80% or 100% confident
• in 80% 60% guilty verdicts but in 100% 67% guilty verdicts
• Stewart: attractiveness
  
  • 60 photos of criminals were shown to participants; tended to give less punishment to the ones they rated as more attractive
• Ostrove and Sigall: attractiveness
  
  • when beauty used in fraud higher punishment

Question 4

what is the halo effect?

Answer 4

the more attractive a person is the more we perceive them as kind and generous

Question 5

what is the aim for Dixon?

Answer 5

• research the effect of accent on legal situations esp brummie accent
• whether race or type of crime
  would make any difference to how the Brummie or standard speaking subject was judged

Question 6

what was the research method for Dixon?

Answer 6

• Lab exp.
  IV: brummie/regional english
  white/black
  blue/ white collar
  DV: persons attributes of guilt and speech evaluation instrument

Question 7

what was the sample for Dixon?

Answer 7

• 119 white graduate students
• worcester uni
• those who grew up from birmingham were excluded

Question 8

why are mock juries used?

Answer 8

• can’t use actual juries because they’re forbidden from talking about a case
• more ethical and can manipulate variables
• but they lack ecological validity and can’t be generalised since they’re mainly students

Question 9

outline the procedure for Dixon

Answer 9

– ppts listend to 2 min transcript of an interview taking place
- police had a standard accent and the suspect was a natural code switcher ( can switch between accents)
- officer interrogating the suspect who pleaded innocent
the type of crime was either blue collar ( armed robbery) or white collar ( fraud)
- race was changed by the officer changing the description of the suspect
- Participants then rated
suspect on a rating scale on a 7-point bipolar scale from innocent to guilty.

Question 10

what were the findings for Dixon?

Answer 10

• analysis showed that there was a significant affect
• having a brummie accent increased your rates of being guilty
• brummie, black and blue collar had the highest guilty rating

Question 11

what were the conclusions for Dixon?

Answer 11

• Evidence supported previous research about the effect of accent on guilt ratings
• One issue is external reliability as more evidence is usually provided before accusing
  someone of a crime.

Question 12

what applications can be used to reduce bias for juries

Answer 12

• using an expert witness
• dress nicely and ‘fix’ accent
• increase confidence
• story order - so can easily follow as you are presenting evidence in order of what happened
• having a screen so jury don’t see the witness