criminal topic 4-psychology and the courtroom

Question 1

dixon et al aims

Answer 1

-to test the hypothesis that a suspect with a Brummie accent will receive a higher rating of guilt than someone with a standard accent
-to see whether the race of the suspect and/or the type of crime the suspect is accused of would make any difference to the likelihood of them being rated guilty.

Question 2

dixon et al sample

Answer 2

-119 white undergraduate psychology students (24 male,95 female) at University college Worcester who participated as part of their course requirements.
-mean age 25.2
-anyone who grew up in Birmingham was excluded
-participants were randomly assigned to one of 8 conditions

Question 3

dixon et al procedure

Answer 3

independent measures design
participants listened to a 2 min recorded convo based on a transcript of an interview that took place in a Birmingham police station with 2 people:
-a male in his late 40s with a standard accent playing the police inspector
-a male in his 20s who was able to speak in both a brummie accent and a standard accent as the suspect
3 manipulated independent variables:
-suspect spoke brummie or standard accent
-suspect was accused of either armed robbery or cheque fraud
-suspect was described by the inspector as white or black
in all versions the suspect pleaded his innocence.
after listening to their version of the tape, participants rates the suspect on a 7 point scale from innocent to guilty

Question 4

dixon et al results

Answer 4

-the brummie accented suspect was rated higher on guilt than the standard-accented suspect
-the brummie accent/black suspect/blue collar crime suspect got significantly higher guilt ratings than the other 5 conditions

Question 5

dixon et al conclusions

Answer 5

-some accents are deemed to sound guiltier than others
-dixon et al suggests that it is likely that strength of evidence in real cases will moderate any effects of accent on legal decision making

Question 6

penrod+cutler- witness confidence

Answer 6

lab experiment with independent measures design - participants included undergraduate students and experienced jurors
participants showed 1 of 2 videotapes mock trials for a robbery
independent variable centred on the key female eyewitness who stated in her evidence that she was either 80% or 100% confident about her identification of the suspect
participants acted as mock jurors to see if they found the suspect guilty or not
results:
-when eyewitness declared herself 80% confident about identity, suspect was found guilty 60% of the time
-when eyewitness 100% confident, suspect found guilty 67% of the time
this significant difference suggested that the more confident a witness is, the more jurors are likely to be persuaded

Question 7

sigall and ostrove- attractiveness

Answer 7

based on the halo effect
lab experiment- participant read an account of a crime with a female suspect either attractive,unattractive or no detail given
the crime was either fraud or burglary
DV participants recommended a prison sentence from 1-15 years in jail
results-attractive suspects given shorter sentence for burglary but opposite for fraud-most severe sentence as used looks in crime

Question 8

broeder-inadmissible evidence

Answer 8

participants were on jury service at the time but agreed to take part in a mock trial
30 experimental juries listened to the case of a woman injured by a man who had driven his car recklessly (real case)
driver either said he had insurance or no insurance and in some trials the judge said that this evidence should be inadmissible
no insurance=$33000 awarded
had insurance=$37000 awarded
had insurance then judge told jury to disregard this= $46000
supports reactance theory (the boomerang effect)-being told not to do something by the judge makes people react to assert their freedom and independence.

Question 9

pennington and hastie- story order

Answer 9

primary research into primary and recency effect suggested that people remember info at the beginning and most recent better than info in the middle
they investigated if presenting evidence in story order vs witness order would be more persuasive for the jury.
it was a mock murder trial:
-defence story order and prosecution witness order= found guilty 31%
-defence witness order and prosecution story order= found guilty 78%
so story order found to be more persuasive than witness order as its easier for jurors to construct a story when the evidence is presented in the order that events took place