Crime topic 4 Flashcards
(17 cards)
What did Stewart (1985) suggest in relation to attractiveness?
There will be a negative correlation between attractiveness of the defendant and severity of punishment.
Research methods- naturalistic- real trial
Conclusions- Attractiveness scores negatively compared to punitiveness, posture also showed negative correlation.
What did Sigall and Ostrove suggest attractiveness (1975)?
RM- experiment, shown a photo of a defendant and asked to suggest a sentence for fraud, burglary photo was attractive or not. Ps suggested significantly longer sentences for burglary when the photo was of a physically unattractive defendant but the reverse effects for crime.
Attractive people are are treated more generously, perceived as less dangerous.
How may accent affect law trials?
The Birmingham accent has attracted a lot of research as being seen negatively than rural regional accents or RP.
What did Seggie’s (1983) study show?
3 accents- British RP, broad Australian and Asian.
Ps listened to tape recordings of the accused pleading his innocence and were then asked to assess his guilt.
White collar crime- upper class, business settings
Blue collar crime- working class crimes eg burglary.
Results- Accent did influence responses given by the rater and type of crime
Accent- more Australian guilt
Theft- British, RP accent and bias
How does language affect courtroom?
Lakoff showed perceptions of witnesses who used ‘hedges’ eg ‘I think’, they were perceived as less intelligence, less component, less likeable and less believable.
How does race affect mock decisions- Pfifer and Ogloff (1991) ?
White university students rated black defendants more likely to be guilty than white defendants and this effect was stronger when the victim was described as white.
What did OJ Simpson discover?
White Americans tended to see Simpson as guilty owing to the evidence against him.
Black Americans were more likely to interpret the presented evidence in terms of police misconduct.
What was the aim of Dixon’s study?
To test the hypothesis that a Brummie accented suspects would produce stronger attributions of guilt than a standard- accented suspected. Also to test whether race or suspect and type of crime would influence the effect.
Who were the participants?
119 white undergrad psychology, 24M 95F
University college, Worcester
What were the 3 IVs?
- Accent- Brummie/standard
- Race (black/white)
- Type of crime- white collar- cheque fraud, Blue collar- armed robber
How did ps listen to a recorded conversation?
Transcript of a rea, interview which took place in a British police station in 1995, involved a middle aged male police inspectors interviewing a young male suspect who pleaded his innocence.
How did the researchers ensure the ‘guises’ were valid?
Validity of accents were tested before the study and more than 95% were able to identify the region of the Brummie accent.
How was it rated?
Rating suspects guilt on a 7 point scale, innocent to guilty.
Speech evaluation instrument- lang attitudes 3 dimensions- superioty, attractiveness and dynamism.
What were the results?
The Brummie suspect was rated as more guilty than the standard accented suspect.
Brummie accent, black suspect, blue collar condition had the highest attribution of guilt.
The suspects level of superioty and attractiveness significantly predicted guilt.
Conclusions?
Attributions of guilt may be affected by accent- Brummie accent more likely to be perceived as guilty of an offence compared to standard accent. Blue collar crime suspects who are black with a Brummie accent are more likely to be perceived as guilty.
Section A question?
- Aim, Sample, RM, Procedure
- Findings demonstrate that accent can affect can affect guilty verdict in relation to blue collar crime and white collar crimes. Specifically suspects with Brummie accents were more likely to be found guilty of a blue collar crime whereas RP would be found guiltier in white collar crime. There was a 3 way interaction between black suspects with Brummie accent who were more likely to be found guilty or blue collar crime. This could be due to existing prejudice that black people with non- standard accents are less educated.
- Brummie accent was rated as less superior than RP accent, therefore superioty and attractiveness predicted guilt.
Section C applications?
Story order- Nancy Pennington and Reid Hastile (1992) proposed the story order model of presenting evidence which can be argued to be one of the most influential approaches to jury decision- making. They suggest that counsel for the prosecution and counsel the defence should present their evidence items in a coherent in chronological order.
Lawyer creates a timeline or story, by organising the presentation of the evidence into a ‘story order’, so jurors can use this narrative to enhance their memory of the events surrounding the crime.
Jurors develop a coherent study, to make sense of the trial information, to make their own knowledge of what is happening. Each jurors make an individual understanding and perception of events, they may have different versions and accept the story which is most complete in the sense that it covers the greatest events in most detail.
The judge sums up evidence and advises the jury on what to verdict. Directions usually come in the form of instructions on the law and can include info about the presumption of innocence and the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
A judge provides one or more alternative verdicts , jurors are likely to believe that version of events of events to return favour to lawyer.
If the jury does not feel that any version of events would lead to one of the judges suggested verdicts that they have to say not guilty.
